PA: New Voucher Bill Moves Forward

Today Pennsylvania's House Education Committee approved HB 2169, a bill to offer "Lifeline Scholarships," which is the newest fun name for a neo-voucher education savings account program. 

This is not new in Pennsylvania, where pushing for an ESA voucher program is an annual activity (here's 2017 and 2018, for examples). ESAs (aka vouchers on steroids) are the current preferred approach of public ed privatizers. 

The Commonwealth Foundation, a right wing dark money advocacy group tied to ALEC and the State Policy Network, was right on this story later the same day, deploying the current assortment of arguments. The quality of a child's education should not be determined by their  zip code (but that certainly doesn't mean that we should make sure that every zip code has the funding and support necessary to achieve excellence). Americans love school choice (but not when we call them "vouchers," which are clearly a public subsidy for private school, so you won't catch us using the V word). And this year, the hot new talking point is "Boy, those pandemic test scores are low!" Which fits with the standard choicer technique of arguing strenuously that that problem right there is really bad, without ever making a case for why their preferred solution would actually fix anything. 

The bill is HB 2169, and it follows the usual pattern for such bills. 

Standard foot-in-the-door style for choicey legislation is to set it up strictly to rescue those poor children at "failing" schools. Students are eligible for this bill if they attend a "low-achieving school," which is a special dodge because PA defines "low-achieving school" as "a public school that ranked in the lowest 15%" of elementary or secondary schools on the annual Big Standardized Test. So even if every school in the state did awesomely this year, 15% would still be "low-achieving" schools. Fun fact: "this term does not include a charter school, cyber charter school, or area career and technical school." In other words, by state definition, a charter school cannot be low-achieving.

The money is handed to a third party program manager, who takes their cut and hands the money off to parents (because that way the state isn't actually directly funding things like, say, religious schools). The parent gets access to an account (perhaps via debit card) and the money can be spent for the usual approved items-- tuition and fees for a private school, textbooks, uniforms, fees for an SAT-ish test, instructional materials, hardware, software, special services, and the ever-popular "other valid educational expenses." Parents get the chunk of money and go shopping for education products.

Parents may not get a kickback from the vendor. They can't put their own money in the account, but they can use as much of their own (or someone else's) money as they wish.

There are safeguards for the vendors themselves. The voucher can't be considered financial assistance for the vendor, nor does participation in the program make the vendor a government actor. And a whole subsection underlines that "participating entity autonomy" can not be infringed on in any way. In other words, when you use the voucher to send your child to a private Christian school, they can accept your child knowing that the government won't make them follow any rules or change any part of how they operate. Also, when they reject your child for whatever reason they like, they government still won't bother them. 

Along with that, there are minimal-to-none standards for oversight and accountability. The auditor general is required to conduct audits of the accounts annually checking for cases of "fraudulent misuse"; there is no requirement for minimum number of audits to conduct. Vendors have to comply with some non-discrimination rules and provide parents with receipts for how the money is spent; if they're going to collect a lot of money, they might have to meet some financial standards. 

There are no requirements that the vendors actually do a decent job. Despite the fact that the stated purpose is to rescue students from public schools that aren't giving them an education, there is nothing in the bill to provide assurance or checks that the vendors that parents have paid (with taxpayer dollars) have provided the student with a decent education. Under "academic accountability standards," we get a requirement that parents must let the state know when the child has graduated, a requirement that FERPA is followed, and that parents fill out a "satisfaction survey" each year. 

That's it. If taxpayers want some assurance that this rerouting of tax dollars has resulted in better education for the students that Commonwealth Foundation is so concerned about--well, no such assurances will be forthcoming. 

All of the above is par for the course, such as we've seen in other states. The funding of the vouchers includes a curious feature. Typically an ESA gifts the family with whatever monies the state was going to send to that student's local school district. But this bill throws in an extra wrinkle-- the amount in the ESA will be determined with this formula:

All the money the state sends to all the school districts minus all the money the state sends that is for transportation divided by all the students in all the school districts. (For students with special needs, throw in a multiplying factor.) So basically the average per pupil state payment.

Which means that some districts will lose less than their actual per pupil state funding, and some will lose more. Commonwealth Foundation estimates that will make about a $6,700 voucher for students; they also claim that $19,200 is the total spending per student-- I have no idea where that figure comes from, as per pupil spending varies wildly from district to district in PA, giving us one of the most inequitable funding systems in the country. We just had a whole lawsuit over this. It would cost a ton of money to fix it.

I suspect the $19,200 number is mostly to say, "Look-- losing $6,700 wouldn't hurt districts all that much, but there are districts where the per pupil spending dips down close to $11K. The state only contributes an average of around 33% of district spending, with the rest made up by local sources, which is why rich districts can be rich and poor districts can't. 

In other words, the poorer the district, the more they depend on state funds. And guess which districts tend to fall in that lowest 15%, so that the districts that are most likely to be hit by these vouchers would be the ones that can least afford it. Meanwhile, $6,700 is not going to fund a whole lot of private schooling.

And as always, it cannot go without mentioning that a student can only use a voucher to attend the private school or vendor of their choice if that vendor accepts them. This is school's choice, not school choice.

Like all voucher/ESA plans, this defunds public schools while giving parents little choice and taxpayers no accountability. Parents get no back-up; just a small chunk of money and a wisg for good luck from the state as it washes its hands of them.

The bill came out of the House Education Committee today (all R but one voted for it), had its first reading in the house, and was tabled, which means it can be removed from the table by direct action or will automatically pop back up in fifteen days. If you're in Pennsylvania, now would be a great time to get ahold of your representative and ask them to kill this bad idea of a bill.  

"Don't Say Gay" Reactions: Masks Off

Now that Don't Say gay is the law in Florida (at least until someone takes it to court), the anti-gay folks are out in force. I get PR releases from folks who want to get themselves quoted in The Media, and they are about what you'd expect.

For instance, FreedomWorks, the Libertarian advocacy group that was part of the Koch Brothers push for the Tea Party movement, wants to hoot a little. From their Press Release:

Despite the many lies and relentless attacks on parental rights by the national media, woke corporations, and Democratic leaders, this bill’s passage means that Florida parents will now enjoy greater control and transparency over their children’s education. It is the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the education and upbringing of their children. HB 1557 reinforces that right and protects Florida families.

The "lies" that they refer to aren't terribly accurate--except for one. That's the one that says the law doesn't single out gay folks, which is technically correct and deeply disingenuous, because everyone understands exactly what the bill is supposed to prevent; DeSantis can say that the bill doesn't single out gays even as his press secretary says only "groomers" oppose it. In case you're not sure, here's a Tweet from Mothers For Liberty, who like many others, have a pretty clear idea of what the law is about.

The "grooming teacher" theory, the idea that all teaching about LGBTQ persons is just a way for predatory teachers to "recruit" is offensive on so many levels, but for people insist that LGNTQ persons are made and not born, it's a natural fit. If LGBTQ identity doesn't occur naturally--if people aren't born that way--well, then, either it's the result of some sort of mental illness, or LGBTQ is perpetuated by constant recruiting, by LGBTQ adults tricking children into changing teams. This perpetuates the age-old evil conflation of LGBTQ and pedophiles. It's also a dumb theory, and a nasty one that is best held by someone who has never met an LGBTQ teen or listened to a student crying and desperately wishing they could be "normal." 

This also fits well with a particular political lens, a lens that views all complaints and pleas by certain subgroups as simply some kind of political dodge, a ploy that doesn't come from actual lived human experience, but from an artificially crafted play to angle for political power. Members of groups don't talk about oppression or bias because those are real things, but because that's a way to craft an argument to Get Stuff. It's all just a trick to get special treatment. One wonders how much of this believe about need to recruit members and politically trickery to gain power is all projection.

The "the law doesn't actually say gay" argument does open an interesting line of thought, though, since it forbids instruction about gender identities and sexual orientation, since "male" and "female" are gender identities, and heterosexuality is a sexual orientation. So it's entirely possible that Florida just made it illegal to have school restrooms segregated on the basis of gender identity.

The FreedomWorks release also repeats another recurring pattern-- "Florida's parents will enjoy greater control" really means "Florida's straight cisgender parents of straight cisgender children" will enjoy greater control. 

Deb Geller, "former UCLA Dean and expert at Intelligent.com," also sent along her two cents, and it's much more sensible:

My concern is about how teachers will interpret the law. Too many schools already act as if all families include a mother and a father; students are expected to make Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards or craft projects for what may be non-existent parents. Whether a child is being raised by a single, divorced or widowed parent, by grandparents or other family members, by same-sex parents, or in foster care, this is problematic.

Fear of retaliation for what they believe to be a violation of this law may lead to more of this type of subtle discrimination by teachers against students and their non-traditional families. All of our children -and their families- deserve to be treated with equity and respect. Diversity should be celebrated, not censored. Curriculum decisions should be driven by educators with students’ best interests in mind, and not by politicians with their own interests in mind.

Well, yes. The chilling effect is a major feature of the law, amplified by the enforcement of the law by parents. Florida has now given every parent the ability to interpret the law as they see fit (including whatever mom created that Tweet above). It doesn't matter if some bring nonsense suits that lose in court--school districts have neither the time nor the money to defend themselves from nonsense suits, and district administrators will continue putting the kibbosh on anything that might trigger their district's most anti-LGBTQ parents.

Ugly days ahead in Florida. 

ICYMI: Tax Edition (3/27)

Because ours are done. Fortunately, the finances of the Institute are uncomplicated (as zeros often are). Also, enjoy the annual hilarity of the $250 limit on teacher's professional expenses. But here's some reading for the week.

Cleveland charter schools uses public dollars to fight union drive

Tanisha Pruitt in the Ohio Capital Journal, detailing how one charter is using its covid relief funds to try to squelch a union drive by teachers. 

It's pride week in Austin schools. The Texas AG says that's illegal.

Washington Post coverage of a bald-faced campaign ploy to strike out--again--at LGBTQ students.

Schools nationwide are quietly removing books from their libraries

A Washington Post story about the entirely-predictable trend of gutless administrators unilaterally getting rid of any books that might "cause trouble." 

Texas superintendent tells librarians to pull books on sexuality, transgender people

Here's exactly the kind of gutless administrator we're talking about, quietly trying to cover his butt and avoid cranky phone calls.

My Little Town

Nancy Flanagan reflects on the racism, small town style. 

After losing book banning drive, some Moms for Liberty are aiming at Tennessee's school board

Jo Napolitano at The 74 has the story of how one high-profile Moms for Liberty group mostly failed with the book banning drive, and is now setting its sights on more high power targets.

How the Minneapolis Foundation bankrolls the destruction of public schools

At Racket, Rob Levine has the history and methodology of one of Minnesota's well-heeled corporate privatization groups, and just how much damage they've done. 

Inside the chaotic charter schools run by a for-profit company

Jeff Bryant has a look inside the schools run by Accel Schools. The chain doesn't know much about education, but it knows an awful lot about how vulture capitalism works by stripping "value" out of an "asset" and handing off the remains to the next extractor.

As legislators push so-called ‘anti-CRT’ bills citing discomfort, Black students ask whose feelings matter

WFPL reporters do a deep dive into this story about race and curriculum, asking whose voices are being heard.

Public school advocates launch effort to stop DeVos-backed voucher proposal

It never stops. In Michigan, DeVos and her buddies are attempting an end run around the governor by creating a ballot initiative to create tax credit scholarship tyle vouchers. But some public school supporters are organizing a response.

I study school choice, and DeVos's plan would hurt Michigan kids

An actual fan of school choice says that the DeVos plan for Michigan is bad news for kids.

Democrats hunting for footing in Education

This week Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire landed in the New York Times, explaining how Democrats are failing to get any ground on education. 

Did charter schools game the system with PPP loans?

Craig Harris takes a look at how charter schools snagged some small business covid loans (because whether a charter is a public school or a private business depends on which answer gets money). The original piece was a USA Today story, but this link will take you to the no-paywall Yahoo News version.

MGT Consulting and Somerset Academy: A Florida Case Study in Ed Reform Working for itself

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider makes sense of the convoluted story of Florida corruption and self-dealing (a story ironically that only came to light because two scams got in each others' way).

How Big Tech sees profit in Social and Emotional Learning at School

Anna Noble at Telegraf shows how big tech is getting its big greasy hands into SEL. Surprise, not.

Petaluma charter school lessons

Thomas Ultican with another of his well-researched deep dives, this time into the shenanigans around the establishment of another amateur-run charter school.

Feds Propose Change In Charter School Grant Regulations

 This is exactly the kind of boring policy wonk stuff that can make ordinary humans nod off. But it;'s worth paying attention to. It's even worth giving the feds your two cents. I'll tell you how at the end of this. First let me explain what's happening.

The Charter Schools Program (CSP) is a federal grant program that gives charter schools money both for start-ups and expansions. It's a big, beautiful federal tax dollar gravy train, and it's been running for many years through many administrations. The first batch of granty largesse was disbursed in 1995; since then something like $4 Billion has been thrown at charters, with decidedly mixed results. A report from the Network for Public Education found that about 1 out of every 4 dollars ($1 billion) had been spent on fraud and waste, including schools that closed within a year as well as schools that never opened at all (spoiler alert: no, the taxpayers don't get their money back when that happens). Despite all that, the gravy train is still running, this year to the tune of about $440 million.

But if we're going to do this, couldn't we at least institute a few rules for getting the grant money? That's what the Biden administration is proposing right now, and we are all invited to offer our thoughts before the proposed rules are adapted and/or adopted.

The language of the proposal is about priorities--in other words, if you meet these certain guidelines, you score more points in the Give Me Some Grant Money contest-- and application requirements. So let's take a look at the proposed language and see what we've got, because some of this is good and some of it could be better. First, there are two proposed priorities.

Proposed Priority 1—Promoting High-Quality Educator- and Community-Centered Charter Schools to Support Underserved Students.

The proposal notes that although charters were envisioned as laboratories of education, where teachers could develop cool new ideas and, in collaboration with public schools, send those ideas out to do good for students everywhere, the reality is that in some communities, "teachers, parents, and community leaders have expressed concerns about not being included as active participants in charter school decision-making." Modern charters have ended up, in many cases, being not so much educator or community centered as owners-of-the-business centered. 

So to score grant-winning points in this priority, charters would have to do some of the following.

Involve "meaningful and ongoing engagement" with current and former educators in founding, governance, school-level decisions about curriculum and instruction, and day-to-day operations. This would be a markedly different model than that used by profiteering charters that are built on models for "extracting value" rather than educating students.

Use a community-centered approach that involves starting with a community needs assessment and continues with regular engagement with the community. Different from those charters operated at a distance by boards hundreds of miles away.

For modern charters, this may be an issue. While some charters are very much engaged with their communities and educators, many are simply business operations.

Proposed Priority 2—Charter School and Traditional Public School or District Collaborations That Benefit Students and Families

This again harkens back to the original concept of charters as partners and collaborators in a public ed system, a vision that has all but vanished in favor of a model that says charters will "help" public schools by spurring them on with market-based competition. That competitive model forbids collaboration; many charter organizations keep their materials as proprietary trade secrets, even requiring employees to sign non-disclosure agreements to protect their "trade secrets." This is completely contrary to a notion of charters as laboratories of education.

So under the proposal, a charter that wanted to score grant-winning points would have to do some version of teamwork, as in

Propose a collaboration with at least one traditional public school or traditional school district. That collaboration could include curricular or instructional resources, professional development, or other practices that could benefit students. In other words, team up with a public school in ways that would make both schools better. 

Does that sound like a hard thing to object to? Just watch-- charter school fans are already clearing their throats, warming up for songs of how public schools are mean to them and also, they should be allowed to guard the trade secrets that make them successful. The whole modern charter universe has competition hard-wired into its dna; there is no logical reason for this to be so (unless you think the real point of charters is to allow entrepreneurs to launch successful education flavored businesses), but just watch and see.

Proposed application requirements

The proposal addresses the issue of "non-profit" charter schools that operate as fronts for for-profit operations.

We reiterate that a charter school is, by definition, “a public school that . . . is operated under public supervision and direction,” and for-profit entities are ineligible to receive funding as a CSP project grantee or subgrantee. It is also a violation of CSP requirements for a grantee or subgrantee to relinquish full or substantial control of the charter school (and, thereby, the CSP project) to a for-profit management organization or other for-profit entity because, among other things, a grantee or subgrantee receiving CSP funds must establish and maintain proper internal controls and directly administer or supervise the administration of the project.

And just in case that's not clear enough:

Some examples of impermissible delegations of administrative control include situations in which the EMO controls all or a substantial portion of grant or subgrant funds and expenditures, including making programmatic decisions (also referred to as “sweeps contracts”); the EMO employs the school principal and a large proportion of the teachers; or the EMO makes decisions about curricula and instructional practices.

This is really important. Politicians have long slunk around the issue of charter schools by saying, "Well, of course, for profit charters shouldn't be allowed" while ignoring charters that are non-profit in name only (looking at you, Clinton 2016). The industry has become quite adept at using non-profit charter schools to generate profits, and all of these arrangements have the same problem as a straight-up for profit charter--the interests of the people making a profit are in direct opposition to the interests of the students. IOW, the less money I spend on those students, the more money I get to pocket. This absolutely needs to be stopped.

Another proposed requirement is that folks who want the grant money to help launch a new charter school must provide a community impact report that shows there's demand for the school and that the school would "serve the interests and meet the needs" of students, families, and the community from which the students will be drawn. That includes showing a plan for making the charter school demographics comparable to those of the community being served. In other words, no segregation academies. And "robust" community engagement plan for creating and maintaining strong partnerships. Charter schools that want this grant money cannot keep producing charters that are done to the community rather than with it.

There are also considerable reporting requirements for any for-profit entity that the charter intends to hire. 

For the CSP grants that are given to states (who in turn dole money out within their own boundaries) these same requirements are in place. The states must also provide detailed information about how they will award the grants, including how expenditures will be monitored and judged.

Other things

The proposal talks a lot about diversity that aims at racial and socio-economic diversity, for instance, in requiring charters to match the make-up of their community. But there's not much about students with special needs or English language learners; these are both categories that many charters deliberately under-serve compared to the public schools in the same communities. 

There's still no auditing mechanism for applications--in other words, nobody is checking to see if the grant application matches reality.

It also seems reasonable to ask for specific caps on grants to schools that haven't been launched yet. One of the big wastes in previous granting has been giving money to schools that never actually opened. 

Speak Up!

Offering your two cents is the easiest thing in the world (Well, not the easiest--but pretty damn easy). On the government website that I'm linking right here, you can find a copy of the full proposal. Up and to the right is a blue button that says "comment," which you just click on and there you go. There's a guide in case you want some "how to" tips. You can comment as an individual or as a group representative. You can even comment anonymously. 

Do not be intimidated. One of the comments currently up at the sites say, in total, "Hi hello I believe this is an important topic to discuss!"

And here's the thing. The charter industry does not want this, and they are already mustering troops to flood these comments with tales of how this will hurt the children and cripple their good work and be a terrible awful no good very bad thing, even though these rules boil down to a simple message--

Maybe charter schools should partner with communities and other people interested in education instead of partnering with people whose main interest is making money. 

So tell the feds that. Make your voice heard. Help the government make one tiny step toward the kind of charter function and accountability that we always should have had. 

Abbott Elementary and the Problem of TV Teachers

Abbott Elementary is the surprise hit of the year, particularly for teachers. The teachers are human beings, the stories are relatable while being recognizable for teachers. It adapts school life well to the mockumenbtary workplace comedy format, even if it hews too close to the formula in some places (the show blares its intention to run a long-simmering plotline in which the main character will eventually dump her bad boyfriend, Jim-and-Pamming her way to the fellow teacher who has a crush on her). 

If you haven't seen it, you should. Scrambling for supplies, finding the resources you need, navigating the tension between your idealism and reality, working as a veteran teacher in the brave new world of education in the 2020s-- those are all here, as well as the painful learning of lessons by all parties. Also, students who look and act like actual students. It is that extremely rare show about teaching created by people who appear to actually get it.

It's so smart and on point and just right about teaching (as right as it can be in 22 minutes a shot) that it makes you wonder why television so often gets teaching wrong in shows. 

Part of the challenge is, of course, that teaching is largely mundane and packed with things that are only exciting if you are a teacher. There's also the challenge of story-- because teachers are, in many ways, not the center of their own stories, but supporting characters in the stories of their students. And of course, television limits the size of a cast; it would be hard to work all of a high school English teachers 175 students into a single series--and then recast them every year.

Perhaps those limitations are why they are so many classroom misfires in the history of tv. 

Teaching as a profession is sometimes used to provide some backstory for a character. Ted Mosby, Ross Geller, and Jessica Day (Zooey Deschanel on New Girl) are all nominally teachers, and yet other than generating the occasional plot device, teaching doesn't really get much attention and certainly doesn't factor in realistic details like grading papers or scraping by on small pay. This idea of teaching as a sort of character background detail goes all the way back to Our Miss Brooks, a 1950s hit from Desilu Studies starring Eve Arden as a teacher who has some co-workers, a boss and generally just one student (played by in-hi-slate-twenties Richard Crenna). Clara Oswold is a teacher, but somehow she never has to do lesson plans on the TARDIS.

Dramatic shows that include teaching have to really ramp up the drama. A peak example would be Boston Public, from, David E. Kelly; it did show the crowded underfunded nightmare of an urban school, but spent almost no time on actual teaching. Instead some stereotypical characters blasted through plots heavy on sex and violence. (No, I'm not going to count Walter White.)

TV teachers who have become supporting characters on their own shows (sometimes to the frustration of the actors playing them) would include examples like Howard Hesseman (Head of the Class) and Gabe Kotter, both of whom took a back seat to the breakout stars in their classrooms. They were also examples of that TV phenomenon--the teacher who only teaches one small class. As the meme says, the most unbelievable thing about the Magic Schoolbus is not the magic, but the idea that Miss Frizzle only has eight kids in her class. The peak of the phenomenon would be Mr. Feeney, who only taught one group of students, and was so committed to being their supporting cast that he followed them through elementary school, high school, and college. 

Television teachers are either noble or hilariously incompetent. They either never take work home, or simply cease to exist outside of school. The entertainment industry has a terrible time envisioning the world of teaching and the people who serve there. TV teachers are the equivalent of movie musicians--you know, the ones who are just told a song title and suddenly they're playing a full-fledged arrangement of it. TV teachers never prepare or do outside work; they just somehow stand up and start teaching stuff. It is almost like a child's version of teaching-- children never see teachers doing anything except hanging out in the classroom, so that must be the whole gig, right?

There is one old series that made a real attempt to portray teaching and schools well. Room 222 was the first series created by then-rising tv writer James L. Brooks, before he created the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Room 222 premiered in 1969 and featured Lloyd Haines as a high school history teacher, Denise Nicholas as a guidance counselor, Karen Valentine as a student teacher, and Michael Constantine as the principal. The show quickly dropped its laugh track and became a dramedy (before MASH even premiered). Room 222 dealt with lots of real issues, from contemporary concerns like the war to social issues and just growing up issues. It tried to be realistic (in the first sixty seconds of the first episode, you hear a teacher asking after still-missing supplies). The students are mostly student age, and Brooks tries to be contemporary--students really "dig" Haines' character, and in another episode, they say want to "rap about our scene." In another episode, the very bubbly and optimistic student teacher (who reminds me more than a little of Janine Teagues of Abbott) struggles (in a single-episode way) with classroom management. The show won some awards in its first year, didn't draw much of an audience, then was shipped off to the Friday night death spot right after Brady Bunch and Partridge Family, with which it didn't really belong. 

In other words, the last attempt to put a realistic take on teaching on tv didn't end all that well, so kudos to Abbott Elementary for pulling it off. 

NH: Lessons From Croydon's 50% School Budget Cut

Well, you can't pretend that the Free Staters of New Hampshire are at all secretive about what they have in mind. Here's the story of how they just went ahead and axed a school district budget. But first, let me fill in the background.

The Free Staters are a bunch of folks who believe they can move into the Granite State, take over the levers of government, and then install their Libertarian dream state, which is to say a government-free land of do as you please. The book A Libertarian Walks Into A Bear is a fair and sometimes hilarious look at how it's going, but we have more progress to report in the education department. 

Free Staters have gotten pretty open about the dream. In a Libertarian Institute podcast, one Free State Project Board member, Jeremy Kaufman, explained that school choice and vouchers are just "a stepping stone towards reducing or eliminating state involvement in schools." Rachel Goldsmith, head of a NH Moms for Liberty chapter (the one that put a bounty o0n teachers' heads) is a previous executive director of the Free State Project.

But some Free Staters prefer to be even less subtle. Meet Ian and Jody Underwood. They moved to New Hampshire in 2007 as part of the Free State Project. Before moving, Jody had worked for the Educational Testing Service, and before that a researcher for NASA and Carnegie Mellon University. Ian was a "planetary scientist and artificial intelligence researchers for NASA," a certified hypnotist, a "fourth generation wing chun sifu,"as well as director of the Ask Dr. Math program. These days Ian is a writer (find him at Granite Grok); he also ran an unsuccessful campaign for the state legislature (motto--I kid you not-- "the way forward is back"). Jody served for years as secretary of the board of directors of the Free State Project; she's also still working on games and learning simulations for Intelligent Automation, Inc. And you can read here her thoughts about why vouchers don't go nearly far enough.

The Underwoods, who have no children, are active in their community in other ways. They've settled in Croydon, NH (a small town just up the road from where I spent my childhood), where Ian is a selectman, and Jody is on the school board.

They are connected. In 2017, the Valley News raised a small flap over the discovery that Jody reached out to her friend Frank Edelblut (former legislator turned education commissioner, at whose confirmation hearing the Underwoods testified) about getting some consulting work for Ian. It's kind of a nothingburger, but the story illustrates how chummy Edelblut and the Underwoods are.\

The Underwoods have lots of ideas about cutting government spending. In 2020, Croydon made the news after the selectmen, including Underwood, decided to fire Croydon's only police officer. After twenty years of service, Richard Lee was told to turn in his uniform and equipment after the surprise motion; so he stripped down to briefs, boots and hat and walked home. He was not replaced; instead Underwood and the other two selectmen abolished the department. 

Croydon still has old fashioned town meetings. At the most recent one, during the school portion, Ian Underwood offered a surprise motion from the floor to the school board where his wife sat as chair-- cut the school's $1.7 million budget to $800,000. The motion passed with a vote of 20-14, which represents about 3% of the town's eligible voters.

Croydon only serves about 80 students. 24 K-4 students attend in the one school building. Students in grades 5-12 have tuition paid at the family's choice of schools, private or public--most at nearby Newport School District, but also Sunapee and Claremont (where I started out life). Ian Underwood, who had written a blog post equating the school budget with ransom, said he based his figure on spending $10,000 per student.

That $10K does not come close to covering the tuition for the upper grade students. Newport's tuition rate is about to rise to $17,880. Private tuition costs are, with only two exceptions, also higher than the $10K. And of course the costs of special ed, transportation, and administration. So in the end, each student will not simply get a $10K pseudo-voucher from the school.

The Underwoods say it's all good. "This gives us an opportunity," said Jody. "This is going to force us to step back and figure out a good way to do this [based] on what we know about how people learn, so that we can keep costs down." Another board member cautioned against a "failure of imagination." Options like a virtual school or learning pods with new New Hampshire BFF Prenda were also tossed out.

People are pissed. The school board meeting two days later drew a crowd of 100 mostly-angry people, destined to be even more frustrated to learn that the budget passage was legal and binding and can't simply be reversed.  And that's where things stand at the moment.

So what are the lessons here?

First, notice that this has absolutely nothing to do with school choice. Croydon had school choice; in fact, one of the angry citizens is Angi Beaulieu, a former school board member who worked hard to create a choice system for Croydon. But this budget cut will trash the choice system they had, with 5-12 grade families having neither the choice of a local school nor the choice of continuing with the public or private school. So this action by the Free State Libertarian crowd actual reduced the school choice options for the parents of their town. 

It's almost as if, for some of these folks, choice is actually unimportant and the real goal is to get government out of education and leave parents to fend for themselves without any taxpayer support. There's no talk about improved quality through competition, or parent's right to choose the best fit for their kids--just "cut my taxes and get the government public education system shut down."

Second, 34 eligible voters out of just over 500 showed up. I don't know-- meetings are boring, politics are boring, nothing important was going to happen. (Update: I have since been informed that there was a snowstorm at the time). But if seven more people who wanted to save their public education system had shown up, this would not be a story. If all of the people who screamed bloody murder about the results after the meeting had shown up for the meeting.

Finally, having money follow the children is not a great way to create a sustainable school system. Funding children and not systems just gets you no system in which to place the child (which, as we're seeing, is the point for some folks). Well--or as Croydon previously found, if you really give people choice, it's expensive.

I have no idea how much of Croydon is Free Staters; the Underwoods have been there for a while and have never made a secret of how they stand, so there's been ample previous opportunity to vote them out, and people haven't. So maybe the only lesson here is that if you have children to raise, New Hampshire may not be a good bet. Or maybe Croydon will follow the rest of the state in re-installing public education supporters. We'll see what the next chapter holds. 

PA: New Charter Regs Are A Start

 Monday Pennsylvania's Independent Regulatory Review Commission gave a 3-2 victory to Governor Wolf's latest move in his ongoing attempts to update the state's decades-old charter regulations. 

These new regulations do not address some of the persistent issues (particularly PA's messed up funding system for charters), but it does provide a few pieces of much-needed transparency and accountability. Charter schools are fond of insisting they are public schools; these regulations require them to act a little more as if that were true. 

The new regulations address six areas of charter operation.

The application requirements are now more rigorous and will require a form developed by the state department of education. The form will include detailed data about who the students will be, how the school will be run, and what the curriculum will look like.

The charters must publish detailed enrollment data as well as enrollment policies. This matters because it will force schools to reveal at least some of the hurdles they've put in the way of students with special needs or other challenges.

Charter school trustees must follow Public Official and Employee Ethics Act, including revealing in financial interests and avoid conflicts of interest. No self-dealing.

Charter schools have to follow the generally accepted standards for fiscal accounting and management. They will have to be audited.

They have to provide health care benefits to employees. And there's also a reconfiguration of timelines and due dates for getting charters their money.

Does any of that sound radical or out of line? No, it doesn't, but charters have fought every step of the way. It will be hard. It will cost money. Well, sure. Accountability is hard, but PA taxpayers will fork over around $3 billion to charters; they deserve to know how the money was spent. Ed Voters of Pennsylvania was more blunt: "Don't cheat, don't steal, don't discriminate against students." It's not that hard.

Some GOP legislators have objected to the governor's use of the regulatory process to do an end run around the legislature, and they have a point-- this is no way to manage this stuff, if for no other reason than what Wolf does can be undone by the next governor. But then, this is the same GOP that is trying to do an end run around the governor's veto power by proposing new laws as constitutional amendments. It's one more version of our traditional mess--our legislature is intransigent, and Governor Wolf tends to govern like a former CEO rather than a coalition-building politician. What the heck--at least we've been able to pass a budget for the past few years. But I digress.

The charter changes are not exactly sweeping; mostly they fall into the "Wait--you mean they didn't already have to do that?!" category, which is why it's important that they rules now exist. Taxpayers deserve basic accountability from everyone who is hoovering up some of their dollars. There are far bigger issues that need to be addressed when it comes to charter school regulation in the commonwealth, especially when it comes to funding, but these are a positive step.