Fordham Advises Conservative Board Members In Parallel Universe

It's a curious little piece in the Fordham Institute's blog, this "Conservative Agenda for School Board Members." The co-authors are Michael Petrilli and Chester Finn, the current and former head honchos of the right-leaning thinky tank (though I will say-- and I'm just guessing here--the level of pearl-clutching in this piece sounds a lot more like Finn than Petrilli to me).

The stock photo is a couple of cute little white kids holding a flag and walking out into sun-dappled greenery. That.... well, sets a tone.

First, they acknowledge that they have sometimes in the past been "dismissive, even hostile" to school board members, mostly because they "often seemed willing to protect the status quo and resist changes intended to overhaul the jalopy we call American public schooling" (that jalopy line does sound like Petrilli).

But we’re ready to look afresh, mindful that it’s unfair to view anything in the sprawling K–12 sector as a monolith.

Cool. I'll be happy if reformsters decide to stop referring to public education as a monopoly. The writers have decided to think of school boards as one of "society's little platoons" in rebuilding overstressed communities. In fact, the duo sees school board members as "best positioned to push back against so much of the nonsense that courses through our schools and our society." That nonsense list is actually pretty short and not very inclusive-- "history emphasizing the nation’s shortcomings, antipathy toward strict discipline, and on and on..."

They admit that board members can't change everything single-handedly, and that in many places conservatives are outnumbered but they don't want to just "cede public schooling to the 'progressive' left, as we have seen in many universities." And they have three specifics that they would like conservative school board members to champion.

First, citizenship. Here the duo try to thread that needle that some conservative edu-wonks have been trying to use to sew up the chasm at the heart of US politics-- let's inculcate pride of our country while still acknowledging its failures and weaknesses. It's a nice thought, but in fact plenty of conservatives don't agree with it and consider any criticism of the country-- past or present-- unacceptable. Not that it's entirely clear what the writers mean by "past failings" since they also reject the 1619 Project's picture of the US as "fundamentally racist."

Second, restore character, virtue and morality to education. Once again, these conservative thinky guys are swimming upstream against their own team, which is filled with people who swear that Donald Trump, quite probably the least moral and virtuous man to ever hold public office, as blameless, anointed by God, and a heck of an excellent human being. The authors locate the core of character in self-discipline and, again, I'm hard pressed to make a case that this is a conservative trait any longer.

They see a liberal focus on making sure disciplinary actions are discriminatory, which they see as focusing on the interests of the "perpetrators." But that's incorrect-- insuring that rules, both as written and as implemented-- are non-discriminatory is very much in the interests of the institution and everyone in it. There is absolutely nothing that undercuts a school's ability to discipline students effectively than the sense among students that the rules are discriminatory, that it's not what you've done but who you are. Once students grasp that, all moral authority of the school is lost, and all you've got is a battle of wills and power.

Third, well, hey write something about conferring dignity and respect on all youngsters blah blah-- but we can sum it up as "make sure your school doesn't discriminate." Part of what they mean is that schools should offer multiple paths and stop favoring college-bound pathways; on this, I absolutely agree. But they also want to push the "success sequence" of finish school, get a full-time job, get married, and have babies-- in that order. What "research" there is to support this is a testament to the age-old inability to distinguish between correlation and causation, not to mention the power of nostalgia for a rosy Leave It To Beaver past that never existed. It's another way to suggest that if you're poor, it's your own fault. Conservatives who are really invested in that sequence would do better to ask why it strikes many people as unattainable or not useful instead of just tut-tutting at how Those People choose to live their lives improperly.

There's other stuff here. Weird items framed as opposites, like suggesting social-emotional learning and character education are conflicting approaches and not two names for the same thing. And a plea for taking ideas from the left and right "not just from the left," which strikes me as odd only because so many schools boards are far too wrapped up in practical concerns to get very ideological about anything.

The piece mostly belongs in the file labeled Reformster Selective Memory Loss. Once again, folks who were instrumental in pushing education reform ideas for decades now look at the results and declare, "How did this ever happen." In this piece, it's America that over-emphasized college readiness and not, say, the entire Common Core onslaught, which acknowledged career education in the "college and career ready" tag line--and nowhere else. The Core was, of course, heavily pushed by Fordham, just as they have been relentless cheerleaders for high stakes testing, which gives less than a fig for character, virtue, and civics.

And while they acknowledge some past hostility, I'm not sure that even that word captures a movement that has sought to chop off the democratic process in any way possible from mayoral takeovers to privatizing takeovers to backing board members who would sell out their districts to promoting an entire parallel system of education that involves no elected representation whatsoever. For Petrilli and Finn to say "we've at times been dismissive, even hostile" to board members, or even the idea of board members, is like Trump saying, "I have occasionally stretched the truth a bit."

Beyond that, the piece almost makes me sad with its affection for a brand of conservatism that has been pretty much shouted down and stomped out by what passes for conservatism these days. This really does read like a piece from some alternate reality where the conservative movement still has ideas, even if they're bad ones, instead of rage and a desire to own the libs. Petrilli has never been, to my knowledge, a fan of Trump, but if he's going to try to talk to elected conservatives, he can't pretend that Trumpism isn't out there.

Biden's Education Unity Task Force

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have announced a half-dozen unity task force thingies, one of which will be focused on education, more or less. Folks are reacting with varying degrees of freaking out on the social medias. I'm going to recommend that you take a deep breath. Here are some things to consider.

Concerns

Alejandro Adler is nobody to be excited about. He's an academic who is associated wit silly argle-bargle like this:

...to infuse education systems in these countries with skills-based teacher training, curriculum development, technology use, and, financing; to measure the impact of these interventions on youth well-being and long-term life outcomes; and to ultimately empirically inform and systematically transform education systems to advance social development

So, focused on measuring things that can't be measured and using education as a tool for social engineering. The language of pay for success. And skills. Great. Like that hasn't been a royal pain in education's butt over the past decades. Adler is the least exciting part of this group.

Maggie Thompson is an Obama alum with a background advocacy, none of it particularly associated with education. Christina Vilsack, on the other hand, taught middle school for almost twenty years, and now does a lot of literacy advocacy when weighing her own political options. Hirokazu Yoshikawa is another academic, specializing in education and globalism, with an extra focus on pre-school; he's te co-author on a book entitled Cradle to Kindergarten. And, of course, Lily Eskelsen Garcia and Randi Weingarten are also on the team.

It's not a reassuring line-up.

On The Plus Side

The team is headed up by Representative Marcia Fudge (D-OH) and Heather Gautney, Ph.D. Fudge is a member of the Progressive Caucus and Gautney is the Fordham University professor who served as a Sanders campaign senior policy adviser.

The education concern about Biden has always been that he would just be Obama 2.0 (aka Bush 3.0). So the fact that they let a couple of left-wingers into the party is almost srt of encouraging if for no other reason than it signals that the campaign is aware that it has a problem with its progressive (aka "what used to be called actual Democrats") appeal.

Concerns

Does anyone else find it, well, odd, that the Biden campaign is only trying to unify with the Sanders campaign. It is less-than-encouraging that out of a wide, diverse field of candidates, the Biden campaign is just going to go with a show of unity between the two old white guys.

It would be nice to see the campaign steal more ambitiously from just about any other campaign (except Mike Bloomberg) but on the K-12 education policy page (which you find by scrolling waaaayyyyyyy down his page of policy stuff), it's just the same old weak sauce.

Why I'm Not Very Excited Either Way  

First, this is political stuntsmanship. The key word is "unity," as in "honest, it's okay to vote for Biden even if you still haven't taken down your Warren or Sanders posters, because we really truly are one big happy family." In other words, this team is not about coming up with good education policy as much as it's about improving electability chances. They didn't call together a bunch of educators; they lined up a bunch of political operators.

Second, I don't know about you, but there is almost nothing that Biden could say or do that would make me trust him on education. Not even "Sorry, we really screwed the pooch back when I was VP" because at this point, it's way too late for me to believe any apology. He's denounced Betsy DeVos; he hasn't shown that he understands the Obama administration's responsibility for helping create her. We were always going to have to watch his every education move and be prepared to raise a stink if his administration did something awful. Nothing that he does between now and November is going to change that. (And--though I hate to say it-- he has to get elected first, and I'm not prepared to make any bets on this race.)

Third, the whole platform thing. I will never understand the deep and intense fights of party platforms. I can't recall a singe moment in history when a candidate has said, "I don't really like this idea, but the party put it in the platform, so I will now try to make it happen." Platforms are like mission statements-- good for collecting dust, but in the meantime, people are going to do what they're going to do. Maybe this team is actually going to do something that will have an effect on the policies that Biden (if elected) will pursue, but I'm not betting my lunch money on it.

Nothing has changed. Supporters of public education were always going to have to be vigilant and, when necessary, noisy for the next four years. That hasn't changed, especially not since the Democratic Party washed out everyone except a candidate who remains next-to-bottom tier when it comes to education. Nothing the campaign could do now would convince me to relax my concerns or vigilance, and that should be true for all public education supporters.

The Why Of Opening Schools Matters As Much As The When

Originally posted about three weeks ago. Not much has changed; only become more so.

At some point, schools are going to open again. Figuring out when will require some complicated medical and political calculus, and while lots of folks are hoping it will be just as easy as life going back to normal sometime over the summer, nobody is ready to bet the farm, or even a few select outbuildings, on that simple scenario.

The “when”of re-opening schools will matter, whether it’s early, late, or right on time. But it will be equally important to talk about the “why.”

It would be great if the “why” was something along the lines of “We want to get back to making good on the promise of a full and free education for every child” or even “We want children to get back to learning and planning for their futures.” 

There are, unfortunately, less useful arguments in play.

Some of the battle over re-opening the US has become starkly political, with GOP lawmakers joining protestors on the steps of state capitols. Perhaps the very worst reason for re-opening US schools (or not) would be in order to score a political victory for one team or the other. 

Another common pressure for re-opening comes from the desire to re-open the economy. It will be that much harder to get workers back on the job if they have nobody to watch the kids, and so the desire to get workers back on the line will go hand in hand with the push to get students back in the classroom. 

One may ask, “What difference does it make why we’re re-opening schools, as long as we’re getting them open again?” But the “why” will have a huge effect on how the challenge is approached.

If schools are re-opened just as a means to another end (restarting the economy, striking a blow for freedom, etc), then important steps will be skipped and necessary corners may be cut.

Opening schools in a time of continued coronavirus will be challenging (I get into that here). Authorities can talk about spacing out desks in classrooms and, somehow, spreading out traffic in the halls, but if all of this hinges on class size reduction, where will all the additional teachers come from? And once you put actual live children, particularly the younger ones, back together in school, it will take roughly fifteen seconds for social distancing rules to be broken. A drop in the spread of the disease and reliable testing will be critical prerequisites for re-opening schools. 

If the reasons for re-opening schools are not educational reasons, authorities will be tempted to just wave vaguely and say, “Just open them up again and then do that educationy stuff.” If all the attention is given to the custodial role of schools, the educational program will be inadequate.

The custodial role will matter. Students will be coming back from a time marked by trauma and disruption. Many will be out of practice when it comes to interacting with other children. Many more will have lost the basic routines of doing school. Teachers will have to deal with all of that baggage before they can even teach. 

The educational piece will be far more complex than the usual September start-up. Some students are maintaining their education, even moving forward. Some, for a variety of reasons, are not. “Meet the students where they are” will be an extremely challenging directive, because students will be all over the map. Teachers are going to need time, support, and resources. And because many school budgets are going to take a big hit next year districts will have to be committed and clever to fulfill their educational missions. During this pandemic pause, the equity gap between schools is widening; states will have to work hard to close that gap when schools re-open.

All of this is challenging stuff, and if our “why” for re-opening schools is “We need somebody to watch the kids so that their parents can get back to work,” the nation is not going to meet that challenge. It’s going to be a back-to-school season like never before.

Originally posted at Forbes.com

Private Equity's Destructive Tendencies

This article ("Why Private Equity Keeps Wrecking Retail Chains Like Fairway") has been sitting on my desktop since late January, which is now, of course, roughly ten years in our collective past, but it's still worth a look. It's not about education, except that, given the deep and abiding love that hedge funds have for charter schools, this is absolutely about education.

Jordan Weissmann at Slate opens with

The list of retailers that have been bought and wrecked by private equity firms keeps on growing. This week, the beloved New York grocery chain Fairway filed for its second bankruptcy in less than four years and announced plans to sell off its stores, thanks to a disastrous run of mismanagement by a series of buyout shops. It’s on a list of casualties that now includes Toys R Us, Payless Shoe Source, and Sports Authority, among many others. That’s on top of financially troubled names like Neiman Marcus that have managed to avoid Chapter 11 or liquidation (so far).

Since January, Neiman Marcus has lost its bid to avoid bankruptcy. So add them to the list of retailers who died, not because they lost some sort of imaginary battle with Amazon.com or other online retailers, but because they were owned by hedge funders who had far less interest in running a business than they had in draining its resources. Even when you find a retailer who has gone under because of failure to keep up with the competition, like Sears/K-Mart  (Oh, look! There goes J C Penney's), it's useful to look more deeply at why they can't compete-- like, say, investors draining the resources that could have been used to keep the business current.

Weissmann proposes three reasons that we keep seeing these stories, and the reasons tell us plenty about how the hedge fundies behave.

Theory 1: Sometimes, private equity firms really are just looters.

In other words, one way to make money is to just smash and grab, to perform the corporate equivalent of bad house flipping- buy cheap, invest in some cheap cosmetic improvements, sell big. This helps explain why so much of the charter biz is actually real estate biz. Like house flipping, these business deals can occasionally work out (Weissmann points out that Dollar General was saved by hedge fundies), but in the school-flavored charter business, there's nothing to save. So we get lots of charter schools that are really tools for milking profit out of a piece of real estate.

Theory 2: Private equity firms are especially terrible for industries experiencing upheaval, like retail.

Or metro newspapers. When a business is struggling anyway, throwing a bunch of debt and bean-counting into the mix is not helpful. The hedge funders who get into the charter biz are actually trying to create disruption and instability and then profit from it, which seems like a tough trick to pull off.

Theory 3: It’s too easy for private equity firms to borrow money.

People like free money, which is understandable. It's easier to try some janky investment scheme if t doesn't cost you much to get in the game. This is even truer in the charter biz. Maybe you can get your legislature to pass some of those rules that say taxpayers have to give your charter classroom space for free. Maybe you can get the taxpayers to foot the real estate costs. Barring that, there's the Community Tax Relief Act of 2000, which has this cool part that lets you double your investment in just seven years. It's the hedge fundies' favorite kind of risk--the kind where they shoulder very little of the risk themselves.

None of this stuff is the kind of free market competition that will make us all better that we were repeatedly promised. This is not the rising tide that lifts all boats. This is not even rescuing students trapped in their zip code. This is just figuring out ways to get money squeezed out of a business sector.

Weissmann notes that not all private equity is bad, and that's totally fair. Responsibly harnessed, private equity even occasionally makes things better. But it's not about taking a business and becoming so expert in the field that you can do better. In fact, it's axiomatic in the buy-up-companies world that management is management and it doesn't really matter what, exactly the company does--the point is to get a good return on your investment. And the humans involved are just numbers on a spread sheet. Why would anyone believe that such a philosophy would serve US education well?

After The Grieving

The first student death I ever experienced was when I was in fifth grade. Betsy was a kind sweetheart of a girl, but suffered from a cruel variety of health issues. One Monday we came back to school, and she wasn't there. Through the day, the word spread that she had died over the weekend. It was a rough day.

Over the years of teaching, there were several student deaths. Suicide. Auto accident. Substance abuse. Illness. Over thirty-nine years, way too many examples.

There's a pattern that these shocks to the system usually follow within the school itself, ways that the school community collectively reacts that is both part of and somehow beyond the individual reactions.

There is the initial, brutal shock, particularly if word does not, as is sometimes the case, get out until the school day is under way. For the adults, the gutting knowledge that this was just too soon, that this person was just too young. For the students, the personal loss-- this person is not going to be in my world any more.

It does not hit evenly. We are not all in it together. For some, the person who's gone was in the close circle, for some, a school acquaintance, and for some, just a name, a face in the hall. Teens, being teens, struggle with their own reactions. Should I feel more? Am I too sad? Not sad enough? Should I cry? Should I stop crying?

And with all of that, the realization that lies beyond any feelings they can explain-- holy shit, but death is a real thing, and I thought it would happen a million years from now, but it could happen today.

The hard edges of everything soften. Every interaction between the students is laced with a new kindness. This could be the last time we ever talk to each other; it should be something not stupid, not something I'll painfully replay in my head for years if you die tonight. The institution itself loosens up; the most stringent classroom and hallway rules somehow seem less important than caring for the young human's whose hearts and guts are hanging out, bleeding all over the place. The emotional health and well-being of the students takes precedence over everything.

For many staff, and some students, at some point, a door in your head opens up and you start asking harder questions, existential level questions. These kids are worried about death; why am I trying to teach them about prepositional phrases? I'm going to die some day; why am I worried about who sits with me at lunch? As a teacher, you try to go through the motions to keep things as normal as possible, but that just heightens your sense that these are just motions to go through. Maybe one day something about how the stars aligns just stops you, and there are no motions and you open the floor in class for raw discussion of the heavier things that are weighing on minds and hearts (even though you know, and can see, that some students find that discussion really uncomfortable and will prompt them to wonder, again, if they aren't feeling too little moved by events).

Sooner or later, in those first ten days or so, you land on the big questions-- What the hell are we even doing here? What's the point?

Everything that ever seemed wrong about the job, about the way you personally do it, seems to loom larger. You resolve to change those things, resolve to change all the things, resolve to recreate yourself as a new, better teacher. Depending on the kind of leadership you have, officially or unofficially, the institution also resolves to change, to do a better job responding to certain student needs, to do a better job at addressing the kinds of problems laid bare by the event. Committees are formed, officially and unofficially. Resolutions are drafted. Policies are implemented; old habits are broken.

But humans are resilient, and schools are particularly resilient, institutionally made to watch people come and go, but like a human body sloughing off skin cells, to keep their shape. And being thoughtful, mindful, a little bit sad and scared all the time-- that's exhausting and hard to maintain. We buy plaques, establish awards, set up memorial objects precisely because we know that we can't be trusted to keep these memories alive on our own, that we need an object or an event to jar our own memories.

And sure enough; days pass and then time and sunny days and rainy days 'n snow. People laugh again and it's okay. Look at the locker or the empty seat and not feel the icy fist pull at your gut. Someone laughs, and it's okay.

Schools do not grieve like individual humans or like families. Schools do find a new normal, but then, schools are always finding a new normal, hitting reset every fall.

Some of those trauma-fueled changes stick. Some students never lose the closer knowledge of death. Some of it is superficial but important; there's a traffic light at the end of the road where my old high school sits, and the light is named after a student who died in a traffic accident back in the days when there was no signal there, and even though I'm sure no students and few students know who he was, the light itself has saved other lives in the years since. Some programs to help students in trouble persist; some are dropped. Some staff members try to go back to work without thinking to much about it; someone on staff takes up a life of advocacy that would surprise anyone who knew them before the event.

In the moments when the new broke, when the grief first hit with the shock of a tub of ice water, you would have sworn that this would change everything, that nothing would be the same. That turns out to be untrue; after time passes, things at school are, in fact, mostly the same. There are pockets of New Things, some of them powerful and important. But in the first few days after the event, you could not have successfully predicted what the lasting changes would be.

I've been thinking about all this lately as I read the many, many attempts to predict (or market) how completely new and different and transformed post-pandemic education will be. In suspect that, in fact, schools will not look all that radically different after the worst of COVID-19 has passed (no, everyone will not have decided to mothball school buildings and just get their education over the interwebz). There will be changes, and some of them will be significant and lasting, and anybody who thinks they can right now predict what those changes will be is either fooling himself or trying to fool the rest of us, or is just trying to sell something.

That's that other feeling, that sensation that often comes mixed up with grief, the sensation that happens when your foot reaches out or back, expecting to hit a solid step and instead meeting air and for that split second your gut clenches and your heart drops and your nerves fire with the shock of not knowing what will come next-- are you somehow plunging out into an endless dark nothing? But then your foot hits something-- maybe hits it wrong or hard or with an ugly twist, but still, you have hit the same solid planet that has always been there, and now you'll figure out how to walk away.

It's good to talk about what can come next, to talk about what we wish we could see in the post-pandemic world, to examine the errors we don't want to perpetuate, and to be particularly mindful of all that when the rush to get back to the old normal because so many folks are desperate for any kind of mental comfort food. I recommend you write it all down, along with a stern cover letter to your future self explaining, "No, you really, really mean all of this."  Because much of what we're feeling now is going to pass, and what will come after will probably not be as strange and unfamiliar as we imagine it will be.

ICYMI: Mothers Day Edition (5/10)

We got some take-out brunch at our house, so my wife is having what appears to be a delicious quiche (I'm not a good judge of egg-based foods) and we're going to try to ignore the return of winter. In the meantime, here's some reading for you. It's a pretty rich week-- enjoy.

Appeals Court Decision Guarantees Basic Literacy as a Right

Jan Resseger looks at the recent court decision that could change everything (if SCOTUS doesn't reverse it first).

Play, Playishness, and STEM in Preschool  

Teacher Tom has some thoughts about the unquenchable adult desire to use faux play as a cover for teaching stuff.

Let's Teach in Pajamas Forever  

Jose Vilson has seen the light. Never mind those school buildings-- let's all stay home forever.

Eva Mosckowitz's Success Academies Still Churning  

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider notes that Success hasn't stop firing and hiring, because they have to have that fresh meat, COVID be damned.

More Coronavirus Relief for Private Schools  

Matt Barnum at Chalkbeat explains how Betsy DeVos has used some creative reading of the rules to steer even more relief money to private operators.

TN governor still moving ahead on school vouchers  

Also Chalkbeat. The court may have struck down Bill Lee's voucher plan, but he doesn't much care. He's pushing ahead anyway.

Punching Down on Veteran Teachers  

Nancy Flanagan looks at some of the folks who were not operating in the spirit of Teacher Appreciation Week. Not a fun list.

Fewer people pursuing teaching in New Jersey  

There's a new report out looking at the health of the teaching profession in NJ. The report is from Mark Weber, so you know it's rigorous yet in clear English, but this piece gives you the simple, sad basics.

Educational Crises and Ed-Tech: A History  

Audrey Watters delivered a look back at how various crises have driven ed tech attempts to Change Everything. Yeah, the current attempt is not the first.

Fuck The Bread. The Bread Is Over.  

Don't freak over the title. This piece from Sabrina Orah Mark in the Paris Review is just beautifully written, about worth and worthiness and function and-- just read it.

Screen New Deal  

Naomi Klein (Shock Doctrine) was watching with considerable alarm when Andrew Cuomo announced that he was asking the billionaire technocrats to "build a high-tech dystopia." This is not a short read, but if you're only going to read one thing on the list this week, this should be your pick.

The Four Horsemen   

Greg Sampson blogs about the horsemen of Florida's education apocalypse. Yes, only four--well, five, actually.

The real Lord of the Flies   

Not directly related to education, but what a great albeit long forgotten story. In 1965 a group of six school boys were stranded on an island, for about fifteen months. Encouraging.

Backpack Full of Misdirection

Jeanne Allen called it a backpack full of cash, strapped to the back of each student, who would carry it from school to school like a young mule.

It's the child's money. It's the family's money. The money should follow the child.

It has been the reformster mantra for years, and it is enjoying a comeback as we discuss very particular dollars, i.e. the stimulus dollars being thrown at the country to fix everything. Betsy DeVos has been reminding us that she has always believed that money should be tied to "students, not systems" as she does her level best to turn education stimulus money into a windfall for private and charter schools.

So it's worth remembering that the whole rhetorical device of money following children is a kind of genius bit of misdirection. Two points.

First, "the money follows the child" one ups the old passive voice trick of who's actually performing the action here. What's that money there behind you, Pat? I don't know, Mom. It just sort of followed me home.

The money follows the child. It's tied to the child. Something something empowered family. It's money that has just sort of appeared rather than having been collected from taxpayers for a specified purpose and destination. And somehow it is magically divided up into shares-per-student, something that doesn't happen with any other pile of taxpayer money (Where is my share of the highway funding? What's my cut of military spending?) The rhetoric creates the impression that this is all just a natural process that can be tweaked a bit, by someone. It all absolves folks like DeVos of having to say anything like, "I want to give a bunch of taxpayer dollars to that private school."

Which is the second point. It's not about the relationship between the money and the child. It never has been. If that were the reformsters' actual concern, we could have been talking about some method of letting students move from public school district to public school district. We could have proposed some plan that erases the school district lines between East Egg and West Egg school systems and let's enrollment sort itself out with finances to follow. And there are places here and there where such ideas have brought up by folks.

But mostly "money follows the child" is not at all about who or what the money follows-- it's about where the money ends up. Reformsters don't want to make sure that every child gets a nice backpack filled with cash; they want to make sure that they can give taxpayer dollars to privately owned and operated schools.

The argument has never really been that school funding should have some connection to school enrollment. It's about a fig leaf to cover a different idea-- "We want to give public tax dollars to privately owned and operated edu-businesses. We want to give public tax dollars to church schools."

It's about where the money ends up, not how it gets there. It's not about empowering families to carry backpacks full of money around; it's about empowering private and religious entities to collect taxpayer dollars. Don't keep your eye on the backpack. That's just a bit of misdirection--the real trick is happening elsewhere.