OK: Walters Wants To Take Local Mess National

Oklahoma's Education Dudebro In Chief Ryan Walters has produced a steady stream of ugliness. That hasn't stopped; in fact, it's apparently seeking a national audience.

Walters drew headlines for moves like explaining that Tulsa Race Massacre was not about race. He called the teachers union a "terrorist organization." He also proposed a host of rules for restricting reading, mandatory outing of students, searching out the dread CRT, and backing it all up with threats to take away a district's accreditation if they dared to defy him. And he followed the Chris Rufo playbook and announced his intent to ban DEI from all schools. Walters wants to see the state "champion religious freedom," like the Catholic "public" charter school that the state is trying to launch (and their Republican attorney general is trying to stop). Somehow, "religious freedom" means to Walters that the Ten Commandments should be posted in every single classroom in the state.

 

In keeping with the screw-ups he orchestrated before taking office, Walters managed to fumble away a bunch of grant money and piss off staff--staff who were sympathetic to his agenda--to the point that they walked out.  And he's still cleaning up after fines from his campaign for office. 

He went out of his way to stop a sixteen year old trans student from changing some paperwork. His reaction to the death of Nex Benedict was such a mean-spirited reactionary mess (one part "we want students to feel supported" and two parts "LGBTQ students must be hold the hard truth that their existence is an ugly terrible lie") that 350 groups signed a letter demanding he get the hell out of office, as he has fostered "a culture of violence and hate." Walters is a prime example of the kind of faux christianist MAGA strain running through too much of our country these days, drawing targets on marginalized people, calling them all manner of ugly names, signaling that the power of the state will be used to silence and erase those people, and then denying that any of this creates a culture of hate and violence. It's spectacularly unChristian behavior offered in the name of Christ. 

And yet, Walters apparently senses that he's destined for bigger things on a broader stage. 

Jennifer Palmer of Oklahoma Watch reports that Oklahoma taxpayers have helped Walters hire a PR firm that, among other things, is sending out pitches like this:

An open letter called for Ryan’ (sic) immediate removal from office for, the letter claims, “fostering a culture of violence and hate against the 2SLGBTQI+ community in Oklahoma schools.

Ryan responded to the letter saying: ‘[this is a] standard tactic of the radical left, and they will stop at nothing to destroy the country and our state.’

Want Ryan on to discuss?

Palmer was ahead of this story, reporting back in November that the Oklahoma Education Department was looking to hire a PR firm to provide print and digital op-eds to national outlets, provide national bookings, coordinate national events and appearances for executive staff, write speeches and handle some communications. That included a minimum of three op-eds, two speeches and 10 media bookings per month. This in addition to the in-house comms department. It sure looked like Walters wanted to be bigger.

So Oklahoma has hired a PR firm from Virginia to craft pitches like the one above and presumably to deliver all that national exposure Walters is looking for. 

The firm is Vought Strategies, They seem like a great fit. Their website includes a testimonial from Jim DeMint calling the firm's founder, Mary Vought, "one of the best conservative communicators and public relations specialists in the nation." Mary Vought has been at it for a decade; previously she did coms work in the US Senate and House of Representatives, working for folks like Ron Johnson and Mike Pence; she's also a senior fellow for the far right Independent Women's Forum, and  the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, an outfit that endorses the likes of Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Rick Scott. And she cranks out pieces like this one for the Daily Caller in which she writes "as a parent" (not a conservative PR operative) that she doesn't want her daughter reading naughty books. Or slamming NIH for Fox News. Or noting a Wall Street Journal profile of Walters, saying "we proudly stand beside our clients as they fight to protect our children and parental rights."

In short, she seems like just the person to be running PR for whatever it is that Walters is trying to do with his profile.

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma, where he was elected to serve an actual function, Walters draws cranky comments from legislators about his lack of transparency, and reports that he's mostly out of the office. Asked about the expense of $30,000 of taxpayer money to hire Walters some PR services, his regular patron, Governor Kevin Stitt said a whole lot of nothing. 

It continues to look as if the taxpayers of Oklahoma are not getting anything like their money's worth out of Walters. Hard to say what job he is auditioning for at this point, but it seems easier to say how much Oklahoma taxpayers should have to pay to fund his clip reel-- $0.00. 

ICYMI: My Least Favorite Holiday Edition (3/17)

I have nothing against the Irish, who arguably helped save western civilization as we know it, and who suffered a lot abuse and mistreatment. But this holiday? I will spare you the rant.

Oh, and this nonsense about a leprechaun sneaking into the house and making a mess? Whoever came up with this idea is getting their own special corner of hell, and while I love elementary teachers a lot, I am pleading with them to please stop spreading this big fat PITA faux tradition to their students. 

Plenty to read, though, so let's start into the list. I put this list together kind of on the fly every week, and if I have missed something worthwhile, that's on me. There is so much to read and so many writers who deserve attention, and if I missed something or someone this week, that's a measure of my inefficiency, not their worthiness. 

I Told You So

Audrey Watters comes back to the world of ed tech for a quick recap of why she was just proven right when she dismissed Udacity as junk.

Americans Have Yet to Accept COVID’s Tragedy — And Are Taking It Out On Schools

Conor P. Williams and The 74 have been on the wrong side of plenty of education issues, but this piece about how schools have taken endless blame for a nation's flubbed pandemic response is absolutely worth the read.

Yet here on the other side of that disaster, we’re determined to assign blame for dips in U.S. students’ academic achievement, as if learning loss could have — should have — been avoided in a moment of widespread viral transmission and mass death. Say it plain: There was no educational and public health playbook that could have wholly averted the pandemic’s impacts on kids.

Kentucky Governor Ready to Campaign Against School Choice Measure if It Reaches Fall Ballot

Kentucky continues to stand up for public education. Report from the AP.

Idaho House committee kills private school tax credit

From Boise State Public Radio, some good news from Idaho, of all places.

Dissecting Republican Messaging, 101

Nancy Flanagan looks into some of the GOP machinery driving some messaging in Michigan (where Betsy DeVos still lives and does her thing).

"Science of" Movement Repeating Mistakes of Education Reform Cycles

Paul Thomas explains who we need to be doubtful when someone starts waving around the science banner in education.

Central Bucks to pay suspended teacher, attorneys $425k, remove references to report

In Central Bucks, PA, the new school board continues to deal with the messes made by the former MAGA majority, including finally getting some justice for a teacher who was punished for standing up for an LGBTQ student. Jo Ciavaglia reports.

Misleading “No Kid Hungry” Ad: School Meals Already Free

Seem those "No Kid Hungry" ads? The indispensable Mercedes Schneider has, and she did some digging. Why are they soliciting by talking about schools that already have free and reduced lunch programs? Who is behind this organization, and where does your contribution actually go? The answers are far less heartwarming than the commercials.

Culture Warriors—on Both Sides—Are Wrong About America’s History Classrooms

At Time, some researchers from the American Historical Association offer a new perspective on what's actually happening in history classrooms.

Library organizations react to Prattville library firings: ‘A travesty’

A library board in Alabama decided to hide a bunch of naughty books, and when the librarian filled a legitimate journalist open records request about the matter, they fired the librarian. 

Professional Development Done With Us, Not To Us

Jose Luis Vilson has looked at many many hours of teacher PD, and he has some ideas about how to make the whole operation a little more useful.

Hackers are targeting a surprising group of people: young public school students

Reporting from Kavitha Cardoza at NPR about the hot new frontier in data hack-and-grab. How good is the cybersecurity at your school?

When Classical Learning Meets Public Education, the Dialogue Isn't Always Socratic

A bit over-sympathetic, but still an interesting look into the various threads in the Classical Learning world, courtesy of Vince Bielski at RealClear.

Rep. April Cromer and her allies dox librarians

And that's not all. Steve Nuzum reports from South Carolina on this Moms for Liberty MAGA menace.

President Biden Proposes Urgently Needed Federal Education Budget Increases for FY 2025

There's some good news for public education in the newly proposed budget. Jan Resseger has some details.

Can Early Academic Pressure Cause Learning Disabilities?

Nancy Bailey looks at what the experts have to say about the effects of making kindergarten the new first grade.

It Could Have Been Worse: An Update On Florida’s 2024 Session

Sue Kingery Woltanski sums up the latest legislative session in DeSantisland. 

Florida teachers can discuss LGBTQ topics under 'Don't Say Gay' law, settlement says

But of course the big news in Florida is the settlement around one of the state's attacks on the First Amendment. NPR has a fine summary, but you might also like the one from Judd Legum. 

A Wisconsin ruling on Catholic Charities raises the bar for religious tax exemptions

AP reports on a decision that makes it harder for Catholic Charities to claim exemptions. Basically, if they're doing secular stuff, they can't claim religious exemption. Does this have anything to do with education? I'm wondering, so I'm putting a pin in it here.

How Viktor Orbán Conquered the Heritage Foundation

These are the same folks who are pushing so hard to dismantle public education and establish voucherfied privatized education in its place. This piece by Casey Michel in The New Republic will not sooth your heart.

How Evangelicals Use Digital Surveillance to Target the Unconverted

Also from the New Republic, and not related to education, but holy cow! Several layers of creepy scary going on here.

Join me on substack. The more subscribers I have, the more this stuff gets pushed out into the world. It's easy, and it's free.

Conflict, Silos, and Choice

One of the less common arguments in favor of school choice is that public schools are just a mess of conflict because people of different beliefs are forced to educate side by side. Wouldn't it be better if everyone could just go off into their own little silo and educate just with like-minded people?

Well, no. It wouldn't.

A couple of decades back, I went to Divorce School. The tuition is very high, and other people have to help pay the cost of your education, so I don't recommend it. But you can learn a lot there.

One thing I learned is that if conflict exists, you cannot disappear it somehow. What may feel like putting it off or tamping it down is really just putting it into an escrow account where it compounds interest and eventually emerges even huger than when you stuffed it in there. If the conflict exists, you are going to deal with it, one way or another, sooner or later. 

A common method for trying to disappear conflict is to try to make the people on the other side of the conflict just go away. Sometimes that takes the form of trying obliterate them in some sort of total victory, sometimes just erasing them somehow, and sometimes simply making them go away. 

The thing is, none of these work. All have been attempted on various scales, and none of them work.

A history of modern warfare, the first time in human history when leaders imagined that the technology existed to truly erase the enemy, shows that from the Third Reich to the middle east, policy based on the notion that the other side can be completely obliterated is failed policy that simply increases suffering and waste of human lives.

In the world of culture panic, we are seeing an attempt to erase certain folks. "Maybe," the theory goes, "if we just made everyone pretend that LGBTQ persons don't exist, we could end all the noise and conflict over that stuff." It's not working. It isn't going to work. 

The current rising love of authoritarianism is cut from the same cloth. If we just had a Really Strong Leader (like Viktor Orban or Putin) he would just make all those dissenting voices shut up forever. This comes with an attempt to Other the opposition, casting them as stupid and/or evil instead of other actual human beings that we need to talk to.

As Americans, we ought to know better. "Wouldn't everyone just be happier in their own place," is the language of segregationists. Segregated silos are bad news, particularly in a diverse pluralistic society.

The more obvious bad part of segregation is not just that diverse people are kept apart. Segregation of people facilitates segregation of resources. If your position is that you don't really want to pay to educate Black kids, then putting all the Black kids, and only Black kids, in the same schools makes it much easier to create policy that directs fewer resources to Black kids. Segregation also works for resource hoarding-- if we put all the rich kids in the same schools, then we can insure that only they benefit from certain privileges. 

But there are other problems with choicing our way to segregated silos. 

One is that every silo is a bubble, and within that bubble, stupid prejudices are free to grow. They're reinforced; say "All mugwumps like pineapple on their pizza" and a hundred heads will nod in agreement, and you'll be that more certain that those pineapple-eating mugwumps really are awful. 

Well, the argument goes, mugwumps will have a school of their own to eat all the pineapple pizza they like, so it's fair. I understand the reasoning. It just doesn't reflect what actually happens. What actually happens is that when marginalized students and families create a siloed option of their own, they turn themselves into easily-identified targets. Anti-LGBTQ folks don't have to say, "Well, those awful people are out there somewhere" and wave their hands vaguely about. They can--and repeatedly do--point at an LGBTQ-friendly charter or private school and declare "How can we allow that!!" Those echo chamber bubbles allow the worst ideas to fester and grow and, ultimately, explode.

Certain conflicts exist in our country right now. LGBTQ persons exist, and some folks wish they would not. Some folks want to keep working on our issues surrounding race and other folks would like to be done with all that. How do we manage religion? Where do we go with democratic norms in a pluralistic society? And why do some people put pineapple on their damn pizza?

The conflicts exist. Nobody wants them. Nobody likes them (though some folks find them useful). But they are here, and one way or another we will be forced to deal with them.

To pretend that we can create samethink silos for schools--or any other part of society--and thereby make our country a better place is a silly idea. We are a diverse, pluralistic country. If you just wish we weren't, well, I wish all my hair grew back, but we can't live the lives we wish we had, only the ones we actually have. 

A diverse pluralistic society based on democratic norms is going to have conflict, and we can either deal with it or let it curdle and mess with us. We're currently operating at a disadvantage, with a shortage of leaders willing to engage in difficult conversations, and we are certainly not going to create such leaders by raising generations in samethink silos. Yes, conflict is hard. Sometimes it's unavoidable. Suck it up and do the work, because there is no way out but through.

Practicing On Cyber Students (Sort Of)

The Relay Graduate School of Education, a pretend graduate school started by pretend teachers, has come up with a great new training idea--practice with pretend students. But not just any pretend students-- AI pretend students. Because if it has AI in it, it must be extra cool and shiny. Except that once again, the actual product promises so much more than it actually delivers.

It appears that Madeline Will, a reporter for Education Week, caught the RGSE pitch at SWSX, and grabbed this unironic quote:

“In order for a teacher to become great, they need high-quality practice,” said Lequite Manning, the department chair of clinical practice and residency for Relay

The high-quality practice is to involve skills teachers need such as "getting to know their students." This happens through some text-based interactions. The teacher candidate plugs in some personal info, then watches a video of a talk between the head of Relay, Mayme Hostetter, and Layce Robinson, CEO of UnboundEducation, a teacher PD outfit. 

Then the AI finally shows up in the form of a letter from a "teacher mentor" who gives the candidate student demographic info. The candidate can ask the AI for advice on dealing with students. Let me say that again--the human prospective teacher can ask the computer for advice about how to deal with the imaginary human children.

Then the teacher begins "interacting" with the imaginary students. Note--the students are NOT AI, but are personas based on "real kids" that Hostetter and Robinson taught. Robinson have had some actual classroom experience (though only a couple of years are listed in her LinkedIn profile); Hostertter spent two years in a private boarding school, and three years in a KIPP charter. The candidate imagines sitting down at the student lunch table (an interesting choice, that) and "strikes up a conversation." Will says that the candidate has several choices about how to start the conversation, suggesting maybe that what we're actually talking about is a multiple choice Talking To Students quiz. Then the candidate shares with the AI mentor, and then is finally rewarded with one of two videos by Hostetter and Robinson--either an attaboy or a try-it-again video.

So, not very impressive, but one more entry in the drive for classroom simulators for teacher prep. I get the appeal-- an actual classroom is often unforgiving, and when you screw up, you may have to live with the fallout of your bad choice for weeks. But the dream of a classroom simulator that's like a, a Hostetter suggests, a flight simulator, is a silly dream. Simulating a physical object interacting with the laws of physics is a hell of a lot easier than simulating human interactions.

Not that folks don't keep trying. Back in 2016 there was a bunch of noise about TeachLivE, a classroom simulation with CGI students direct from Uncanny Valley School District. This looked creepy, but like this newest wrinkle, it turned out to be far less than it pretended. The teacher trainee is interacting with a CGI rendering of students, but those students were actually animated by "an interactor" who "controls the student avatars in the classroom, speaking through a microphone and using head-mounted and handheld controllers programmed to respond to certain movements." It's a blend of "program control and puppetry." 

What classroom simulators seem to have in common is the attempt to look as if they are harnessing cool new technology, when they really aren't.

In the late seventies, I had an education course taught by Robert Schall, who had years and years of actual public school teaching experience. We would develop and teach practice lessons, with our classmates as students. Also in the classroom was "Bobby," a compendium of every annoying student behavior ever. Dr. Schall didn't filter himself through a special algorithm or computer program or even put on some kind of costume. He just sat in the back of the room and gave us the experience of dealing with challenging students. After years in real classrooms, I can confirm that Bobby was an excellent simulation of the real thing. 

The best way for new teachers to learn about the classroom is direct experience, and the second best way is from experiences teachers who have spent years in the classroom. Trying to interpose shiny tech is both hugely difficult and also never likely to yield the quality of results from the first two sources. 

PA: Vouchers Feed Discrimination

In Pennsylvania, where we ought to be focused on responding to a court finding that our whole method of funding public education is both inequitable and inadequate, our Democratic governor Josh Shapiro and the GOP legislators just cannot get over their desire for more school vouchers.

This despite the fact that our current voucher system is both hugely unaccountable and also used to fund some jaw-dropping religious discrimination. 

So there are hearings going on (and have been for some time). Recently one of the people offering testimony was Susan Spicka, of Education Voters of Pennsylvania. Spicka is a rock star in the world of supporting public education. At a hearing of the House Democratic Policy Committee, Spicka opened her testimony with these lines:

In his budget address, Governor Shapiro said, “It’s ridiculous that here in Pennsylvania two women can get married on a Sunday and fired from their job on a Monday, just because they’re in love.”

What Governor Shapiro left out is that the children of this couple could get kicked out of their private school on Tuesday. And that tax dollars are used to support this discrimination.

Discrimination is a feature, not a bug, of school voucher programs. Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) school voucher programs direct $470 million tax dollars into private and religious schools that can, and do, explicitly discriminate against students for just about any reason they choose.

During this particular hearing, Representative Ismael Smith-Wade-El asked the question that has been on lots of minds since the death of Nex Benedict (video below):

Do you feel that the outcomes of these sort of funding pass through and voucher programs pose a risk to the lives of transgender young people?

Spicka's answer was to the point. Yes.  

If you're not living in an area like this I don't think that you can understand the impact that this hate that is coming out of these churches has on communities and on children, and without the tens of millions of dollars in voucher funding that has been poured into Lancaster County since eitc ostc was founded, these churches would not have the revenue that they have they would not have the expanse that they have. These churches are being funded by voucher dollars and they are spreading the hate.

Spicka's full testimony is worth reading, but I want to underline this point because it is often overlooked. It's not just that these discriminatory schools reject and expel students who don't align with their particular values. It's not just that they take taxpayer dollars and then decide which students they consider worthy of receiving an education, once again demonstrating that the promise of school choice is empty--it's school's choice instead.

It's also that by strengthening and funding these schools, taxpayers are energizing a source of toxic attitudes in the community. People who want to treat LGBTQ persons as Other, treat them as (as NC gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson puts it) "that filth," get to gather together in a bubble, convince each other that their way is the only right way, and then go out into the community and act on that belief. 

We continue to see signs that increased anti-LGBTQ rhetoric fuels more abuse and mistreatment of LGBTQ persons, and funding these christianist organizations makes it easier for them to amplify their anti-LGBTQ voices. 

I use the term "christianist" because none of this discriminatory nonsense looks like the Christianity that I know. Look, if you feel you can't fully and freely exercise your religion without being able to marginalize, attack, and discriminate against certain classes of people, I'm pretty sure you're doing your religion wrong. You are making your community worse, and why taxpayers should finance your bad behavior is beyond me. 

ICYMI: Lost Hour Edition (3/10)

Don't forget to move the two or three items in your house that did not automatically change the time. Remember-- today won't be so bad, but tomorrow it's going to be a real treat to pull the bodies of yourself and your loved ones out of bed. But at least we have the comfort of knowing that daylight savings helps... something. I'm sure there's some good reason.

Well, here's your reading list, anyway.

Homeschooling, ‘indoctrination,’ Jan. 6: A look at NC’s new GOP superintendent candidate

Lots of election results this week, including news from North Carolina, where Republicans decided they wanted to go full wingnut, including this candidate for state superintendent.

Public Education Attack Measure

Thomas Ultican takes a look at the Network for Public Education report on how well states support public education.

The surprising promise and profound perils of AIs that fake empathy

From Amanda Ruggeri in New Scientist, a piece that isn't about education exactly, except that this has rather huge implications for the whole idea of teacherbots and what they can't provide students.

PragerU is a conservative video giant. Here's why it's trying to get into schools

Lisa Hagen on All Things Considered takes a look at the conservative propaganda outfit trying to pretend it's an education outfit.

Without Effective Public Oversight, AI in Schools Will Do More Harm Than Good

New report from the National Education Policy Center. Thorough and detailed and well worth the time.

Shocking Online Manifesto Reveals Project 2025’S Link To A Coordinated ‘Christian Nationalism Project’

Jennifer Cohn at the Bucks County Beacon has uncovered yet another planning document from Christian Nationalists who would like to be in charge of, well, everything. 

Nex Benedict’s death shows policy failures, harms from inaction

Oklahoma Policy Institute calls out the atmosphere of hate that led to Benedict's death.

After Nex Benedict’s death, LGBTQ youth group saw 200% rise in crisis contacts from Oklahoma

How are things going in Oklahoma? Not so great, reports Jo Yurcaba for NBC News.

Texas places state’s largest charter school network under conservatorship

IDEA catalog of financial misbehavior has ended up with a state takeover. Ikram Mohamed has the story for the Texas Tribune

Secret recording shows school voucher proponent talking of 'public hangings' of lawmakers

Phil Williams of News Channel 5 in Tennessee has some tapes revealing the kind of threats and arm twisting behind the push for vouchers in the state.

Pennsylvania state senator says cyber charter schools underperform at the cost of the taxpayer

The continuing mystery in PA. Everyone knows cybers are expensive and perform poorly, and yet... Meghan Schiller reports at KDKA News. 

Appeals court blocks Fla. ‘Stop Woke Act,’ says it’s a ‘First Amendment sin’

In other unsurprising news, DeSantis gets a setback and the First Amendment gets a win. By Anumita Kaur for the Washington Post

In Defense of School Sports

Have you noticed lots of young athletes spending the year in private pay to play programs for their sport? So has Nancy Flanagan.

North Carolina’s public voucher dollars are funding Christian Nationalist indoctrination in schools

Justin Parmenter continues to track some of the religious discrimination and indoctrination being paid for by North Carolina taxpayers. 

The Essential Narrative for Public Education Advocates: Public Schools Are Central to the Well-Being of Communities

Jan Resseger looks at some unfortunate implications of recent research. Does privatizing education change a community's very nature?

Illinois Prison Fired Teacher for Saying Jim Crow Laws Were Racist

Elizabeth Will-Greenberg reports for The Appeal on this story that is just as bad as it sounds. Bet you didn't know that Jim Crow laws were totally race neutral.

Over at the Bucks County Beacon this week, I wrote about the Independence Law Center doing the work of pushing bad policy in PA school boards. Also, at Forbes, I wrote about yet another attempt to push AI essay graders on the classroom. 

Join me on substack. It's free and goes straight to your email, where you can peruse my latest output at your leisure (even if you're running an hour behind). 

Vouchers Are For Dodging Regulations

This week, we saw the story of a charter school in North Carolina that, having been ordered to shut down, reimagined itself as a private school.

Expect to see versions of this story over and over again. Charter schools mostly require some sort of authorizer to sign off on their ability to function, and those authorizers are backstopped by the state. Meaning that even in a state like North Carolina, a charter school can be a big enough mess to get itself shut down.

Charter schools in some states have barely minimal accountability and oversight. But "minimal" is still more than "none," and "none" is what most states have in place for school vouchers.

For instance, in West Virginia, where someone just noticed that at least one microschool is failing miserably, the rules for getting voucher monies look like this:

The state doesn’t ask potential vendors to submit a business or education plan up front. Anyone who wants to be an authorized Hope “service provider,” including a microschool, must sign a contract agreeing to get criminal background checks on staff working with students and to notify districts when they enroll. To receive funds, vendors need only submit a W-9, a tax form for an independent contractor, and document the Hope funds they receive from parents.

That's typical. In most voucher states, all you have to do to be a voucher "vendor" is just say so. And it's not just that voucher laws lack any sort of oversight or accountability mechanisms--most of the recent voucher laws or law expansions very specifically forbid oversight or accountability.

This has happened even as voucher fans have retired the talking point that vouchers allow students to get a better education. Fact is, most voucher laws are carefully designed in such a way that we have no idea what quality education students are getting.

Why are we here? It's simple.

Voucher programs are not about giving students access to quality education. Vouchers are about giving churches and businesses access to taxpayer dollars.

The less oversight and accountability, the more access to those taxpayer dollars. If that costs some students a few years of their education, oh well. They are not the priority.