Vouchers As Tax Avoidance for the Rich

The Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy has released a new brief looking at school vouchers-- specifically the tax credit scholarship version. What they found was a great way for the wealthy to avoid taxes.

ITEP is a liberalish outfit that conducts "rigorous analyses of tax and economic proposals and provide data-driven recommendations to shape equitable and sustainable tax systems" and works "to make the case for raising enough revenue to truly meet all our societal needs" as well as "put forth a vision of a more racially and economically equitable tax system at all levels of government." 

Tax credit scholarships are a set-up on which individuals or, in some cases, corporations can donate money to a "scholarship organization." The organization hands out vouchers to schools --usually religious ones(in some states, each scholarship organization is attached to one particular private school)-- and the financial contributor gets a tax credit. Twenty-one states currently have them. 

Voucher fans like this version of voucher because it lets them pretend that no "government money" is being spent on private religious schools. They're technically correct because the money never touches the government's hands, but, as Kentucky's state supreme court noted when they tossed that state's TCS law out, “The money at issue cannot be characterized as simply private funds, rather it represents the tax liability that the taxpayer would otherwise owe.” In other words, the tax credit money might not be in the government's hands, but those tax credits still leave a hole in the state budget that taxpayers must deal with.

ITEP points out that the benefits for those who use these voucher tax credits don't end with the tax credits themselves. 

One dodge that used to be popular with TCS programs was the charitable donation. In this dodge, I contribute, say, $1,000 to the state's TCS program and so get a $1,000 credit for my taxes. Then I turn around and count the $1,000 contribution as a charitable donation on my federal taxes. Ka-ching.

Well, the charitable donation dodge may be over, but ITEP points out that many just like it are in place. Not just in place, but a big part of the marketing done for tax credit scholarships. The report includes many examples:

The Alabama Policy Institute published a brief pointing out that: “A contribution made from a business owner may receive both the standard dollar-for-dollar tax credit as well as a deductible business expense on the federal side. Essentially, business owners may make money from a contribution.”

Decatur Heritage, a Christian school in Alabama, has a video on its website where the narrator gags after saying the word “tax” and urges businesses to “double dip” with state credits and federal deductions. Its website also describes the maneuver as a way to “make money by giving.”

The Georgia GOAL Scholarship Program touts the “double tax benefit” that results from claiming state credits and federal deductions, made possible by the fact that “the IRS regs are generous.” GOAL says the shelter is “too good to pass up!” and presents an example calculation where a business owner receives a tax cut of more than $33,000 in return for a $25,000 contribution, yielding a net profit of $8,393. 

The Opportunity Scholarship Fund in Oklahoma advertises “BIG tax credits and deductions!” in return for contributing and presents a relatively conservative example where the taxpayer can walk away with $400 more than they initially donated. 

And this one is especially juicy:

Fenwick High School in Illinois points out that “The stock market is still trading near all-time highs! Take advantage of double tax savings by contributing long-term appreciated stock to an SGO (thus avoiding capital gains tax).”

ITEP points out, as you have already guessed, that these kinds of tax maneuvers are not being performed by regular folks who got to H & R Block to get their taxes done. In a close look at Arizona, Virginia, and Louisiana, ITEP finds that the vast majority of these credits are being claimed by folks in the $200,000 and above bracket-- 60% in Arizona, 87% in Virginia, and a whopping 99% in Louisiana. 

Tax credit scholarships are not just one more way to privatize education through school vouchers; they're also a way for the wealthy to avoid taxes and bank a little more money themselves. Ka-ching. 

You can read the full ITEP brief here. It's not long, but it's plenty illuminating. 

Universal Vouchers: A Gateway To Discrimination

At The Hill, Neal McCluskey (CATO) offers a version of argument he's often made on the tweeter machine, saying it might mark "the beginning of the end for religious discrimination in education." Here's the short version:

Unfortunately, when religion comes up in the choice debate it is typically to assert that choice violates the “separation of church and state,” or unacceptably lets people choose schools embracing beliefs that liberals, especially, dislike.

The former is just wrong: Rather than government establishing religion, choice keeps government neutral. On the latter point, liberals should openly condemn teachings they find abhorrent. But government favoring their values over others is a fundamental violation of equality under the law.

Government schools cannot be simultaneously secular and religious, Methodist and Buddhist, Jewish and Catholic. For this reason alone, everyone should celebrate the great expansion of school choice.

This post was going to be a twittering thread (McCluskey and I have had plenty of perfectly civil interactions via tweet), but then I realized it was going to be too long for, so I'll make my points here.

First, I don't accept the premise that "secular" requires hostility to religion. If you play in the percussion section, you aren't hostile to melody--it's just not your job to handle it. A secular education system doesn't try to fulfill any religious functions, for a variety of reasons we'll get into. 

There's another issue in that first point, which is the newly revived idea among some folks that they cannot fully and freely practice their religion unless they are free to discriminate against people of whom they disapprove, like the Mom who objects to having her child taught empathy because she believes there are some people her child should not feel empathy for. This is a whole other post, but my short answer is this--there is no placating these people as long as circumstances find them in a pluralistic society. 

But where I really disagree with McCluskey is in his central notion that by allowing everyone to retreat to their own personal bubbles, we can end all the various battles over culture and religion. But earlier in the piece, McCluskey himself points one reason that this will not work.

Foremost, because public schools are government institutions, and constitutionally, government cannot advance religion. This is for a good reason: If government could push religion, it would have to select one — Methodist? Catholic? Buddhist? — rendering all others second-class. And choosing any religion discriminates against atheists.

One of the things I appreciate about McCluskey is that he's not sloppy with language. "Push" and "advance" here keep the point separate from what universal choicers want, which is taxpayer support. The whole choice thesis is that by not using taxpayer funds to support private religious choice, the government is discriminating against religious folks (with the newest legal test of this theory coming to a courtroom in Maine). Again, this reasoning goes, I am not fully free to exercise my religion if the taxpayers aren't subsidizing my choice. 

I should get to practice in my little bubble, and the taxpayers should help pay for the bubble.

That's how this vision of choice leads to religious discrimination on an unprecedented scale and takes us all the way back to the question of separate but equal.

How much support is the government required to provide for my separate bubble? Here are some scenarios.

The Catholic school in my town has its own building. My tiny sect would like to send our children to our own private school, but we cannot afford a building for that school. Should taxpayer dollars be used to give us the same private educational option for free exercise that the Catholics have, or, since we have less money than the Catholic Church does, are we just SOL? 

The Church of the Very Rich sets up a private school runs on a very pricey tuition fee from its families, who just use their universal voucher money for books and uniforms and a college fund for the kids. Our Lady of Perpetual Poverty has to exist on voucher payments alone, offering far less to its students (many of whom applied for admission to CVR Academy, and were rejected). Can its parents sue because they are not getting the same opportunity to freely exercise their religion, or are they just SOL?

A local group wants to set up a private school in town, and while they claim to be religious, it seems that they are mainly focused on neo-Nazi ideology. Neighbors complain about the cross burning ceremonies, but the school claims they are important religious observances and their free exercise rights protect the rallies. Meanwhile, taxpayers are asking, "Why the heck are we paying for this?"

A variety of secular schools realize that if they re-configure themselves as religious schools, the "free exercise" clause is a ticket to the Land of Do As You Please and they can start discriminating against students and faculty in pretty much any way they wish as long as they claim that it's an essential part of their religion. This will force taxpayers to fund all sorts of things that they (and not just liberal especially) object to, from aryan supremacists to gender theory schools. One worst case scenario will be a government agency given the task of figuring out which religious schools are "real" religious schools and which are just playing games. The other worst case scenario will be states figuring out how to regulate these schools so that they can't discriminate in ways that would be illegal for anyone else. Or maybe we'll just have a government office of educational equality that makes sure that every religion gets an equal shake in the school funding/free exercise department. No way that could end badly.  None of these "solutions" will be popular.

Now that we're establishing that I can't have freedom to exercise my religion without enough of a taxpayer subsidy, who is going to decide how much subsidy is enough?

If all of this somehow runs smoothly, we'll be left with the traditional kind of discrimination--discrimination based on socio-economic class. Every family gets a voucher, but the wealthy folks in East Egg will essentially tax themselves to keep their own bubble school well-resourced, well-staffed, and well-supplied with all the nice extras. Meanwhile, it West Egg, parents with less wealth at their disposal will find that their vouchers, whether directed to public or private schools or fly-by-night pop-up schools meant simply to cash in (see also for-profit colleges), don't get them much. "But it's perfectly equal," voucher fans will argue. "Everyone gets the same cut of government money. If West Egg parents don't like the limited choices they have, they shouldn't have decided to be poor."

Meanwhile, 18-year olds from across the country emerge from their special bubbles like snowflakes falling under the hot sun of a pluralistic society, wondering why they too must contribute their tax dollars to these other schools where students are taught things that (as these graduates have learned their whole lives) are Evil and Wrong. 

I can imagine plenty of awful scenarios. What I can't imagine is how vouchers + religious schools results in a free and adequate education for every child or greater harmony and cohesions for our pluralistic nation. Yes, yes, I understand we haven't exactly mastered either of those things currently, but I don't see how vouchers + religious schools does anything except make matters worse. 

Confusion in Choice Land

Okay--where do you think this next excerpt came from?

Our public schools are one of the few unifying institutions that we have left. If we allow [something] to continue to individualize and atomize the classroom, we shouldn’t be surprised if our culture and political climate follow suit. In a traditional classroom with central texts, common knowledge, and routinized behavioral norms, our children learn to let another finish speaking before interrupting, no matter how much they might disagree. How many complete strangers could spark up a conversation over their shared love—or perhaps disdain—for the Great Gatsby because so many of us have read it in high school?

Traditional literature classrooms in particular seem all the more important as technology advances. When children spend ever more time isolated in their rooms, endlessly scrolling on their phone, depressed and anxious, the act of putting a phone away, reading together, and then making eye contact to discuss the text could be the very “social and emotional” support that they need. When artificial technology can accomplish evermore tasks, enjoying a book with friends is one of the few remaining, distinctly human pleasures.

Is this me, arguing against current versions of school choice, particularly tech-based versions like micro-schools?

Nope. This is Daniel Buck, rising star conservative education writer on the AEI/Fordham circuit. I've written about him before, and you can check that out of you want more of his story or the story of his website, but for right now, mostly what you need to know is that Buck's specialty is arguing against straw versions of progressive education stuff, which is what he says he's railing at. My impression is that Buck means well, but doesn't spend near enough time reading actual non-conservatives about education. 

Here he's railing against progressives who, in his telling, are out there letting students in classes pick all sort of different texts and do different things and follow different muses and while I have no doubt such teachers exist (in a pool of 4 million, you can find examples of anything), I'll bet that most teachers, conservative or not, find the idea of overseeing 130 different individual reading units the stuff of nightmares.

No, the place you're much more likely to find an array of students following an atomized assortment of varied educational paths would be a city that offers dozens of school choices, from "classical" whiteness to computer-driven whatever to contemporary diverse authors to neo-Nazi home schooling. 

The argument he makes in this latest piece--that the nation benefits from having students share core experiences together while learning some of the same material even as they learn how to function in a mini-community of different people from different backgrounds--that's an argument familiar to advocates of public education. The "agonizing individualism" and personalized selfishness that he argues against are, for many people, features of modern school choice--not public schools. 

He closes out his argument with an illustration of an activity:

My favorite activity that I carry on with my class comes at the end of every unit. I spin the chairs into a circle and cover my chalkboard with countless thematic words like “aging” or “isolation,” so long as they relate to whatever book we just finished. As students file in, I give them only a blank piece of paper and a pencil. They choose which topics to talk about, I give them a few minutes to write about how this word showed up in the book, and then we discuss. Some conversations last a few minutes. Some spin on for almost an hour as we weave back and forth between discussing the book and our own lives, allowing the text to shape us, form us, and draw us closer together. These incredibly rich and, at times, personal discussions only happen because we first shared a book together.

I'm not sure that activity is recognizable as being either conservative or progressive, though all that touchy feely life-sharing drawing together feels more progressive. You could probably argue that a true literature conservative would focus on the meaning of the literature while assuming that it has one meaning and the transmission of that meaning is the point of the lesson, and that sharing different ideas about it is just fuzzy liberal thinking. So maybe figuring out the labels is more trouble than it's worth. 

Voucher Opposition On The Right

In some states, like Idaho and Texas, we're seeing some conservatives remember that being conservative doesn't really go along with handing over taxpayer dollars with no oversight or accountability, and so it makes sense that folks on the right would oppose school vouchers, particularly in the currently popular form in which the government throws tax dollars at families to spend with no questions asked.

But it turns out that there are pother folks on the right who don't like the school voucher idea.

New American is a seriously right-tilted publication. It features articles like one explaining why Jesus was no socialist and another celebrating the return of the John Birch Society (with whom they're affiliated) to CPAC. They've got a whole opinion piece about how government school is terrible because it quashes young genius, thereby supporting the old theory that if you keep going rightward, you eventually reappear on the far left.

But in this piece by Alex Newman (whose far-right credentials are impeccable), we get the argument that vouchers are a trap, a Trojan Horse, cheese in the mousetrap. Here's the opening:

The money should follow the child, they said in the early 1990s. That way, they said, parents will have “school choice.” Fund students, not systems, went the common refrain. This will introduce more “competition” in the quasi-monopoly education sector, they said. And it will give parents the ability to choose the education that best aligns with their priorities.

It all sounded so great that parties from across the political spectrum agreed to give it a try. Even conservative-leaning American think tanks such as Heritage were impressed, trumpeting the policy as a model. But then, in an instant, all genuine choice was abolished with one “education reform” law fewer than two decades after “school choice” was approved.

Suddenly, private schools taking public money were ordered to teach the radical government curriculum, including the gender-bending extremism. All had to participate in national testing, too, ensuring that all schools taught what the government wanted taught. With public money there must be “accountability,” they said.

Perhaps even more troubling, supposedly Christian private schools were ordered to stop all Bible reading and prayer during school hours. In the same legislation, homeschooling was banned. Homeschoolers were forced to flee the nation, with armed police grabbing some children, such as Domenic Johansson, as families desperately tried to escape “school choice” to freer nations.

In short, all genuine and meaningful “choice” was abolished in one fell swoop — all under the seductive guise of “choice.” Somewhat ironically, perhaps, the alleged effort to offer alternatives to government schools ended up turning all schools into government schools.

Now--twist--that's supposed to be what happened in Sweden, but Newman offers it as a warning. And by the way--the whole vouchers-as-a-trap strategy was laid out by UNESCO!

And the Public-Private Partnership model? That's something widely supported by "global elites." In fact, did you know that the Nazis did something similar, using money to rope in private schools.

In other words, “private” schools will become government schools once they take government money — regardless of “their ownership.”

Even some popular figures on the right can't be trusted.

The dangers of the approach advocated by DeVos and DeAngelis become obvious merely by examining the programs. This year, powerful lobbyists and Florida Republicans introduced House Bill 1 to open up the floodgates of government funding to homeschoolers and private schools. The original draft of the bill would have made tax-funded “Family Empowerment Scholarships” available to basically all students in Florida, including homeschoolers and those attending private schools.

But, as always, there was a big catch: In exchange for government money, the students receiving it would be required to take government-mandated tests aligned with Common Core, with results reported to authorities. The families would also be required to meet each year with a “choice navigator” to determine the educational “needs” of their tax-funded child. The aid was to be distributed by a government-aligned “non-profit” organization that received grants from Florida’s leading LGBT extremist group even as it was seeking to impose its “woke” agenda on Christian schools.

Do you get it! Common Core!!!

You can't trust any of these people. "Trojan Horse-type situation" says Lieutenant Colonel E. Ray Moore (Ret.), founder of the Exodus Mandate ministry to get Christian families to abandon government schools. "When we reach for the money, the handcuffs go on."

CEO Robert Bortins with Classical Conversations, a prominent organization providing classical Christian education to homeschoolers nationwide, highlighted this argument. “I think it is very basic. Who pays for it? If it’s the government and outside of God’s design it will not yield good outcomes.”

Newman doesn't acknowledge the very specific language that voucher fans have included in their bills to cut all strings tying the money to the government. He does like the idea of tax credit scholarships, if you're paying for your own child's education. Because over on the far right, children are an awful lot like chattel.

Rather than looking to government for help and other people’s money, Americans must return to the biblical principle that children are the God-given responsibility of parents — not Caesar or even one’s neighbors. This is true not just in terms of feeding and clothing, but in education, too. No one should feel entitled to seize money from his neighbor for the “education” of his children. Taking wealth from one’s neighbor by force is wrong, even if it is being spent on an otherwise noble goal.

There's a lot of blather in this piece, but it's a good reminder that neither the pro- nor anti- voucher camps are unified in their visions, values, or concerns.
 

FL: Is Hillsdale Coming For Sarasota Schools

Sarasota has been the center of so many Florida shenanigans, and now it appears they're going to show one more way for christianist conservatives to commandeer a school district.

Prologue

It is. for instance, the board with just one Democrat. That member, Tom Edwards, is a gay man who has been accused during public comments of being a "lawbreaker," a groomer, and "a threat to the innocence of our children and the rule of law in our great state." It happened once; the board chair did not stop it, but later apologized--and then failed to stop it the next time it happened, resulting in Edwards walking out of the meeting. Edwards, who just announced his intention to run for re-election to his seat, a feisty move as he is on Governor Ron DeSantis's hit list of school board members that the governor will campaign to unseat (because that's what rational, humane governors do). 

The vocal member of the public doing the attacking has alleged ties to Moms For Liberty, so perhaps she feels extra emboldened that the head of the Sarasota board is one of the founders of Moms For Liberty.

The Players

That's Bridget Ziegler. Ziegler squeaked out a victory for Sarasota School Board in 2018. Ron DeSantis thinks she's swell. And she's married to Christian Ziegler, who decided not to run for re-election to a county commissioner seat because he'll be busy helping his wife and DeSantis each run their own campaigns (that and new rules that would have made it harder for him to win).

Christian Ziegler told the Washington Post that he has been "trying for 20- and 30-year old females involved with the Republican Party, and it was a heavy lift to get that demographic. But now Moms for Liberty has done it for me." That was in October of 2021, when Ziegler's involvement had gone quiet; Tim Craig at WaPo reported that Ziegler's wife was "loosely" connected to M4L--not that she was a co-founder of this group that emerged to accomplish just what Ziegler had long searched for a tool to accomplish.

Christian Ziegler's Microtargeted Media ("We do digital and go after people on their phones") was a big player in the 2020 Florida race, on the ground for Trump and other GOP candidates. He pulled in $300K from a Trump-related PAC. He was once a Heritage Foundation Fellow. He's buddies with Corey Lewandowski. He appears to be behind the Protect Wyoming Values PAC (a Trump anti-Liz Cheney proxy), Governor Kristi Noem's election integrity website, and a bunch of other conservative Trump-backing websites. He was at Trump's January 6 rally. 

And in February, after had been "effectively... campaigning for the job for years," Christian Ziegler was elected Florida's GOP party chair. Meanwhile, Bridget Ziegler is helping the right-wing Leadership Institute train school board candidates.

Bridget Ziegler just acquired a right-wing majority in the 2022 elections; their first move was to force out the previous superintendent. And while a search for a replacement is under way, it appears that Ziegler is handing over major portion of the operation of the district to a consulting form wioth deep roots in the christianist right.

The Consulting Company

Tuesday afternoon, the board was supposed to vote on a contract with Vermillion Education, LLC (but that vote has been postponed until April 18). If their website seems a little sparse, that's because they have only been operating for a few months. Their promises and principles are suitably vague-- I mean, here's the whole pitch as of today--

The address Vermillion lists on the contract proposals is a single family home (1640 square feet) in a residential neighborhood of Hillsdale. And their personnel--well, so far, it looks like one guy.

That guy is Jordan Adams, fresh from Hillsdale. There's a lot of story with Hillsdale (here's a short-ish version or get into it more heavily with a whole series of articles), but the current version is a private right-wing christianist college whose head, Larry Arrn ("Teaching is our trade; also, I confess, it's our weapon"), is the same MAGA-fied guy who headed up Trump's 1776 Education thingy (and said teachers are the dumbest). They've provided a platform for a lot of school privatization and taxpayer subsidies for private christian school rhetoric from heavy hitters like Betsy DeVos and Christopher Rufo, all arguing that government shouldn't be running schools--churches should.

Hillsdale has long had a charter school initiative called the Barney Charter Schools, and more recently they've been behind the launch of many "classical" academies around the country.

Jordan Adams is a Hillsdale grad ('13), which means he was a Hillsdale student when they were launching the Barney schools, and eventually became their Associate Director of Instructional Resources. I'll let you draw your own conclusion about his fitness for the role:

“I mostly focus on the history and Latin curricula, figuring out how things are taught in a fourth-grade or eleventh-grade classroom,” said Adams. He looks forward to experimenting with more accessible resources for teachers: “When you’re a first-year teacher, you’re just trying to stay one day ahead of what you’re supposed to be teaching. You don’t have time to sit down and read a long text about teaching. But maybe if there’s a short video that is clearly titled and easy to access, you might conceivably watch it while you’re making dinner.”

If only there were a place to go where you could study teaching so that you knew what you were doing on more than a day by day basis. Adams's original undergrad plan was to work at a think tank, then he went to grad school for a Masters of Humanities. One more educational amateur rediscovering the wheel. But apparently reinvented it well enough to move up to interim director of curriculum for the Hillsdale College K-12 Education Office, a job he was holding back in October of 2022.

But he's not entirely new to Florida--in fact, Adams was part of the crew that screened the math textbooks that DeSantis accused of being too indoctrinatey. 

Adams is no longer listed in any current capacity as employed by Hillsdale, though there is no peep about his departure. Not sure what we can make of that. 

The Contracts

So what exactly does Ziegler want to sign this fledgling company to do? The two recent contract proposals (the ones that were going to be approved today) aren't super-specific. One consulting contract for a district improvement study lists a lot of the how, but the what is mostly in subparagraph 2:

So, basically all the things that parental rights transparency don't say stuff laws are directed at.

The other proposed contract is for "board services" covers

So, basically, if Sarasota ever hires a new superintendent, that person won't have a lot to do. 

The board services contract is a mere $4,820 per month, which is pretty damn cheap for someone overseeing all the work of a school district. And all of this--reviewing programs, curriculum, overseeing hiring, checking out all contractors, and running the board's PR--all that is supposed to happen in a mere four months (commencing immediately). So this new consulting firm is going to get the whole district up and running in time for next fall. For just under $20K. Maybe Adams is not a one man consulting firm, but if not, exactly whom will he hire with that kind of money?

And he's going to be busy, because the district-wide improvement study, both research and writing, is supposed to take just sixty days. The good news for Adams is that the contract says the costs of that study are TBD. 

Also notable in the study is that Adams will report directly to Ziegler.

So does anybody know why Sarasota is considering this?

So why, anyway?

Ziegler has not responded to press requests for comment on the Vermillion contract, so coverage has focused on comments she made at the meetings.

She said during last week’s workshop that Vermilion could help staff navigate the “challenges and issues” that happen when “components of certain types are finding their way” into curriculum and programs the district uses.

“It’s an impossible burden on our staff,” she said. “I wanted to bring it forward and present it to the board...I don’t have a specific scope of work.”

WTXL has been covering the story. They couldn't get comments from Jordan Adams or "anyone from Vermillion." Ziegler told them before scooting away.  The closest thing to a clear explanation came during a board meeting, when Ziegler brought up hiring a board consultant.

"To have someone to help us with certain things when it comes to keeping us away from the fire," she said at one point. Referring to the many political flaps of the board, she added, "It's been distraction after distraction, and I don't want to continue that."

Asked by WTXL reporter Katie LaGrone how exactly she heard of Vermillion, Ziegler didn't really say. She "works in education circles" and "certainly it was brought to my attention." 

After the meeting, LaGrone asked Ziegler if she understood that given Adams and Hillsdale's history, this move "might look a certain way."

"My focus again, whether it looks that way or not, is about getting the distractions out and making sure that our instructional materials for all our students is appropriate and in line not only to the standards but to the expectation of our families." But isn't asking a rep from a notoriously right-wing outfit a bad idea? "Why is it a bad idea to even consider how can we take pieces of that that would align to our mission as a public education institution that would not imply indoctrination of anyone's ideology but get back to the core classical components of academics. I think it's worth looking into, and it sounds like the board also agrees."

How exactly was Vermillion going to do this? "This is very beginning, early discussions," Ziegler told LaGrone before scooting away.

"Frankly, " Edwards told LaGrone, "I was waiting for something like this." In talking to reporter Chris Porter, Edwards expressed other concerns.

“The public is having the same confusion I am experiencing — but then again, I am not in their inner circle,” he said about the other board members....This has not ever been workshopped. There has been no discussion by board members … no exchange of ideas. There’s been no public comment. That, to me, is not transparent,” he said.

What's actually happening?

Either Ziegler and her crew think Adams can pull off a speedy miracle, or one of a couple of other things is true:

1) None of the parties involve know what the heck they're talking about.

2) Adams already knows the answers he's supposed to come up with and he will arrive with a suitcase full of Hillsdale classical education supplies that he will "recommend" the district adopt quickly (maybe more quickly than they will hire a superintendent, who ought to be overseeing these sorts of things).

3) Hiring a consultant to implement christianist right-wing programs gives Ziegler and her crew some insulation. In other words, you reduce the "distraction" of objections to your political agenda by claiming, "Well, I didn't say that...." and waving in the general direction of your consultant.

There are mysteries to be solved. If Adams left Hillsdale in hopes of striking it rich in the consulting biz, this isn't getting it. Maybe he thinks he's on a mission from God, or maybe he's just working some kind of deep cover shtick for Hillsdale. 

Maybe this is just proof of concept in a friendly district and what we're seeing is a new model of how Hillsdale can colonize local school districts, and all those board candidates that Ziegler has traioned are taking notes. That just means Sarasota needs to buckle up and the rest of us need to pay attention. Stay tuned.

Sec. Cardona's Bold Bowl Of Oatmeal (And That's Okay)

This is a critique of a pronouncement from Education Secretary Cardona, with a special twist ending. We're going to Raise The Bar: Lead The World.

That's the title, a thing stripped of any poetry or sense, of some new initiative thingy that the United States Department of Education is embarking on. Secretary Cardona rolled it out in a "major address." And if you're wondering what, exactly, they're talking about--well, let's drill down into the language of the announcement and see what we can find.

The press release is appropriately vague, speaking of "global engagement" and making "a call to strengthen our will to transform education for the better, building on approaches that we know work in education" and a "collective will to challenge complacency." The department tweet is even more obtuse, exhorting that "we must step up, seize this opportunity & maximize the potential of our students, our schools, and our country." It all seems vaguely familiar.

This new--well, I guess we call it a "direction" which I suppose is less definitive than an "initiative" but more focused than a "general inclination"-- thing comes with three "focus areas." 

• Achieving Academic Excellence
• Accelerating learning for every student
• Deliver a comprehensive and rigorous education for every student 
• Boldly Improve Learning Conditions
• Eliminate the educator shortage for every school
• Invest in every student’s mental health and well-being
• Creating Pathways for Global Engagements
• Ensure every student has a pathway to college and career
• Provide every student a pathway to multilingualism

A, B, C--get it? The actual goals are about as generic as one can get, with nary a specific actionable item in sight. I'm not even sure what "global engagements" are. Do we want our citizens to outdo workers in other countries? Bring the jobs back here (as if that is in worker control)? 

We can tease out some more specific notions from the actual text of his speech.

The speech, like the press release, really really wants you to know that the American Rescue Plan includes a "historic" $130 billion thrown in the general direction of schools. 

What we do need is a collective will to fight complacency and status quo in education with the same passion we used to fight COVID. We need the same spirit of unity and bipartisanship we had in the first two months of the pandemic, when we looked past red and blue, and tapped into our humanity, courage, and American spirit.

That's a bold choice of comparison, because education is still dealing with people whose passion is to fight against the fight against covid, a passion that they have indeed transferred to education itself. "No masks" and "No vaccinations" shifted pretty quickly to "No naughty books" and "No telling kids to be nice." He says at one point that culture wars aren't the answer, but maybe he doesn't get where they're coming from. Nor does getting nostalgic about a period that was a two-month blip in the larger narrative seems unlikely to yield help.

But I really take exception to the "complacency" line. I know a lot of teachers, and while they might be described as tired, beleaguered, passionate, overworked, committed, professional, and doing their damned best, I can't say I know many that are "complacent."

But from there we move on to the ABC's of this new thingy.

Academics? We get this baloney:

As much as it is about recovery, it’s also about setting higher standards for academic success in reading and mathematics. It’s unacceptable that in the most recent PISA test, an assessment which is done internationally, our students scored 36th place out of 79 countries in math.

Bringing up our rank on the PISA is an automatic disqualifier from the Take Me Seriously derby. We have always ranked low on the PISA, and nobody has ever correlated that performance with anything. We always get beaten by Estonia. So what? If you want to convert education to a Prepare for the PISA model, it could be done--all you'd have to do is give up any pretense of actual educating.

What specific academic advances does he have in mind? "Science of literacy" and "strong decoding," and I'm not going to get into the reading wars because (spoiler alert) winning the reading wars and teaching students to read are two different things. Financial literacy. High standards aka stop grade inflation. STEM. Pre-K. And this bold stance:

It means that we pursue good pedagogy in a well-rounded education that includes and embraces the Arts—and reject a school experience that is narrowed to only what is tested.

It tells you something about the last twenty-some years of government edumeddling and general bullshittery that it's even a thing that a statement by the secretary of education saying that "good pedagogy" is a thing we should pursue. 

We need to recognize once and for all that standardized tests work best when they serve as a flashlight on what works and what needs our attention – not as hammers to drive the outcomes we want in education from the top down, often pointing fingers to those with greater needs and less resources.

This is a true thing. Federal education people should say it, and they have, many times. It's a fine thing to say, but if it is not immediately followed by "And so we will call on Congress to end federal mandates for standardized testing as a measure of school effectiveness, teacher quality, and student achievement," it doesn't mean a damned thing. Especially when it's coming from the guy who defended the BS Test at a time when it was clearly a waste of valuable time and resources.

Then we're on to better learning conditions. Cardona calls for better mental health supports, with more counselors, somehow. More professional development on trauma informed practice (because one more PD session will totally take care of that). 

Let’s not have pandemic amnesia and forget how schools closed because they did not have enough teachers.

Yeah, too late on that pandemic amnesia thing. Teachers are important and we should pay them more, he says, with various rhetorical flourishes. The administration is ready to throw a bunch of money at teacher development and retention. Higher salaries. Career ladders like Master Teacher and Teacher Leader. Cancel college debts. Actually listening to teachers and respecting their opinions. These are all nice ideas that we have heard before (though admittedly not in the previous administration, so thanks for setting that bar low, Secretary DeVos).

Pre-K through college connection. Career and technical education. Watch for the rollout of a "new pathways initiative" which will "include very specific plans on how our high schools should be evolved to meet the career and college pathways of today and tomorrow." Micro-credentials. Career pathways create options. 

This cradle to career stuff will help our graduates "compete on a global stage," and whenever I hear that magical phrase I want to know if A) better educated widgets will somehow cause corporate bosses to bring back jobs to the US and B) what sort of education prepares students to compete by agreeing to live on subsistence wages. Cardona seems to love the cradle to career model; I've complained about his support before. 

Also, multilingual stuff is good.

Then it's the big finish, including something Cardona cribbed from the Betsy DeVos playbook. In a list of parallel structures exhorting folks to join in:

If you believe that it’s worth taking a few lumps as we challenge the protectors of the status quo in education: join me on this journey.

What status quo, and which protectors? Seriously. Because one status quo I can think of is the continued use of the Big Standardized Test, and that piece of status quo is protected by the federal government. So go ahead and get started on that one, will you? 

The speech and the thingy that it introduces seem like the usual lukewarm bowl of unflavored oatmeal, and in a way, I guess that's okay. Here's a bit from early in the speech:

We have seen shiny silver bullets from the federal level promising to “fix” education. We’ve seen big initiatives with clever names that promise everything, only to fade away after the sense of urgency is over.

That’s not what this Administration is about.

This Administration is about substance, not sensationalism in education. It’s about real solutions to complex issues, informed by real experience – with an unrelenting focus on the instructional core.

Okay, I'm not sure that it's clear what the heck this administration is about when it comes to education, but the idea here is sound.

Any Secretary of Education who stands up to say, "Hey, here's a Great New Thing that will fix education in this country" is full of it. Doesn't matter if the Great New Thing is National Standards or a Big Standardized Test or a federal grant competition/bribery system or even Freedom Scholarship Vouchers--anyone who thinks they have a silver bullet for education is full of enough fertilizer to turn the moon brown. 

The speech that I would most trust from a Secretary of Education would be one that admits that there's nothing special or exciting that the feds can do, other than make it possible for states to support teachers in doing the work. 

That's the big secret of education. Doing the work. Getting good people to do the work, and then removing as many obstacles and providing as many supports as possible. We've lost our way educationally in this country by a sustained bipartisan effort to do the inverse--providing obstacles and removing supports. The federal government has treated teachers with distrust and tried to micromanage them, and bot directly and indirectly empowered the very people who want to put obstacles in the path of public education. 

It's not drudgery. It's not a grind. But the work is slow, steady, unglamorous work, and every attempt to turn it into drama of operatic proportions just gets in the way. The work is about relationships, and though teacher-student is a relationship different from others, it still thrives not on the Grand Gestures but on the daily maintenance. 

It's not just that I'm not looking for fireworks from the bully pulpit in DC-- I distrust them. And while I find nothing in this bland compendium of committeefied bureaucrat-speak to get excited about, I can't imagine what a secretary of education could say that would excite me. 

But do you know how I know for absolute certain that Raise the Bar is a nothingburger?

Here's the twist ending. Although the tweet that brought it to my attention went up March 31, the press release and speech about Raise the Bar happened back in January. And since then...?

It made it obliquely into Cardona's Not Gonna Take It Anymore interview with Politico ;ast week:

“I was hired to improve education in the country. I’m not a politician. I’m an educator. I’m a dad, and I want to talk about raising the bar in education,” Cardona said in an interview with POLITICO last week. “But I won’t sit idly when some try to attack our schools or privatize education.”

In that interview he went to actually say some stuff, like calling out bogus culture war baloney. In an op-ed run in Florida, he actually pointed out that parent's right rhetoric was just a fig leaf for a push to defund public schools (a point on which I'd say he's exactly correct). 

“Our students are as [emotionally] dysregulated as they ever have been in the last twenty years. The surgeon general reminded us that we’re in a youth mental health crisis, where one in three high school girls has considered suicide in the last three years,” Cardona told POLITICO. “I’m tired of folks looking to get political points by attacking vulnerable students, vulnerable communities and attacking our schools.”

He added: “If we’re not standing up for our students, who will? I feel it’s time.”

In other words, let's get all this crap out of the way of doing the work. I would take one education secretary like this over a hundred of the kind that pump out oatmeal like Raise the Bar. It remains to be seen if he can sustain it, or if we're just going back to oatmeal.

ICYMI: Out Like A Drunken Lion Edition (4/2)

It has been a miserable mess of a week. Nationally we have had to repeat our usual gun violence in school dance, which always feels dark and draining and casts a pall over most everything else.

Here at the Institute, it has also been a week. My parents needed a hospital visit for a variety of challenges, and the cherry on top was a positive COVID test. They are vaccinated and so doing well, but my sister has been quarantining with them, which means heaven will have to build an annex for her crown in order to fit all the stars that belong in it. I have two siblings who are both absolute bricks, so we tag team our way through these things. Meanwhile the Chief Marital Officer of the Institute is away at a library convention, and as you read this, I'm off helping my oldest son, his wife, and my granddaughter move into new digs. So we are just roaring our way into spring here. Also, power outages.

It is just a time, and the readings for the week tell us that many people are having a time all over the country. Let us all just keep keeping on.

The defeat of a school voucher program reveals the truth within the 'school choice' debate

Sandra Jones writing for Our Schools with a report on how the defeat of one voucher bill shows what's wrong with education savings accounts, and why even some conservatives oppose them.

Ron DeSantis Chose the Wrong College to Take Over

Conor Friedersdorf misses a lot of the fundamental issues involved in this piece, but it still provides a pretty vivid picture of what the takeover of New College looks like on the ground. It's in the Atlantic, so beware the paywall.

"They banned Dolly": Republicans want the dumbest parent at the school to control the curriculum

Amanda Marcotte, writing for Salon, has harnessed an awful lot of anger about right wing culture war stuff lately. Here she focuses on policies that have given individuals the ability to dictate to everyone.

The culture wars are driving teachers from the classroom. Two campaigns are trying to help

At Hechinger, Javeria Salman looks at two new organizations aimed at helping recruit and defend teachers in the current climate.

Calling Out Some “Ban Books, Protect Guns” Hypocrisy

The indispensable Mercedes Schneider lays out some of the double-faced legislating going on in states.

Florida school bans Disney movie on civil rights activist because a parent didn't want her child to learn hatred

Claire Thornton reports on the story of the district that banned a Disney movie about Ruby Bridges because one parent was sad about it. 

The GOP Embraces the Kyle Rittenhouse Approach to Kindergarten

Dahlia Lithwick looks at the apparent disconnect between the far right's interest in defending students from books, but not from guns. It's important to remember, she points out, that they don't believe in public education in the first place.

High stakes for Chicago schools in mayoral election

Valerie Stauss at The Answer Sheet (Washington Post) hosts Cassie Criswell and Diane Horwitz to talk about the many reasons that Paul Vallas is the wrong choice for Chicago's mayoral election.

Paul Vallas’s trail of school privatization

Jim Daley at The Tribe looks at the trail of destruction that Vallas has left behind him. Share with a Chicago voter you love.

The Absolute Folly of Standardization

Nancy Flanagan with a reminder that standardization and education make a problematic pairing.

Why Republicans Are Embracing Vouchers Even Though They Don’t Work

Jonathan Chait at the New Yorker is absolutely wrong about charter schools (but then, his wife works in the charter industry), but that means he's more than willing to point out the problems with voucher support. That makes this article both a good critique of the politics of vouchers and an interesting peek inside the charter-voucher rivalry.

The West Coast Think Tank Behind DeSantis War On Woke

Okay, so to read this you have to navigate one of the most annoying paywalls on the internet at The Nation, but Jennifer Berkshire is there with the tale of the Claremont Institute. 

Gun Deaths Among Kids Keep Rising, But Studies Show State Gun Laws Can Help

From US News-- the school shootings are not the worst of it. But we already know some things that help because (spoiler alert) it's not equally bad everywhere.

Why Donald Trump is talking about parents not loving their kids

Does it seem like the parental rights movement is a bit hostile to children? Philip Bump at the Washington Post picks on a new Trump thread that may be part of the same narrative.

The GOP's 'Parents Bill of Rights' excludes millions of parents

Hayes Brown at MSNBC looks at parental rights law, and who doesn't get to be part of it.

Michael Lawler breaks GOP ranks, votes against 'Parents Bill of Rights' he co-sponsored

For one legislator, an amendment to target some children was just too much to bear.

Schools forced to divert staff amid historic flood of records requests

One of the effects of parental rights laws is turning the three R's into reading, 'riting, and records requests. It's the perfect tool for harassing the heck out of districts. The Washington Post has this story.

The SEL Battles in Florida

Allie Wong with an in depth look at the battle in Florida over whether or not to talk to students about being nice. 

Public Education Is Vital for Democracy. But It’s Not the Solution to Poverty or Inequality.

In The Jacobin, Jennfer Berkshire reviews The Education Myth and the persistence of certain neo-liberal fairy tales.

Three minutes and the truth

Paul Bowers went to the South Carolina capital to speak out against censorship. What he said and heard.

State superintendent emails 'pornographic' images to entire Oklahoma Legislature

Oklahoma's education dudebro-in-chief is a special guy.

Over at Forbes.com, I looked at a survey that says many Floridian students have had enough, and Rep. Jamaal Bowman's proposal to put an end to Big Standardized Testing.  

Join me on substack, where you get all the stuff I send out into the intersphere. Free and in your inbox.