ICYMI: Black Cat Nazi Porn Election Edition (9/22)

Well, that was a heck of a week for news. If you somehow missed it, God bless you--I'm not going to spoil it for you. In the meantime, here's some reading from the week.

How AI Detection Software Turns Professors into Cops, Tech as Systems of World-Making, and More

From The Markup, an interview with Maywa Montenegro about AI in the (college) classroom. Worth it for just this paragraph alone.

Even if you believe that the machine is learning, your brain is not learning. And you might be in debt—tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars—from your education. Do you really want to walk away without having given your brain, your mind and intellect, the gift of that learning, even if it’s a struggle? That blows my mind. Why would we do this? Please don’t.

English teaching, AI and the thermostatic principle

Julian Girdham with what amounts to one quick thought about AI, but it's a worthwhile one for combatting hype.

Why Teens Across the Country Are Acquiring Brooklyn Public Library’s Free Digital Cards

Who's using the Brooklyn Public Library e-card, and why? Kelly Jensen at Book Riot has stories and charts. 

Why ‘School Choice’ is on the Colorado Ballot This Year — and What You Should Know About It

Mike DeGuire with plenty of details and background on an attempt to get school choice enshrined in the Colorado constitution.

Trojan Hearse? A Right-Wing Think Tank Aims to Abolish the Miami-Dade Teachers' Union

I'm not sure I would call the Freedom Foundation a think tank; they're more of a dark money hard right anti union activist group, and at the moment, they have targeted a major Florida union local. Francisco Alverado has the story for Miami New Times.

Alabama teacher poisoned by students, unable to work: Lawsuit

It's like Alabama state and local authorities tried to fine the best way to shaft a teacher who was already in a mess thanks to students. Trisha Powell Crain has the story for AL.com.

Using Learning Science To Analyze the Risks and Benefits of AI in K-12 Education

I don't think I buy everything here, but it covers a lot of ground with some actual nuance and sources, even if it is from the Center for American Progress.

Middle School Prepares Us For Social Science Thinking Too

Jose Luis Vilson is as always thoughtful and personal about education. In this case, some of the special features of middle school.

'Educational' Screens In Classrooms Do More Harm Than Good

Clare Morell at Newsweek suggests that while we're having the big discussion about cellphones in the classroom, we might want to talk about those other omnipresent screens.

School voucher and hospital groups top lobbying spending lists for 2024 TN legislative session

If Betsy DeVos weren't rich, she would sure be broke by now. A breakdown on who's trying to buy their way to policy success in Tennessee.

Exclusive: Watchdog finds Black girls face more frequent, severe discipline in school

Claudia Grisales reports for NPR on a study from the General Accounting Office, and boy these numbers are ugly.

Some Missouri schools arming teachers in the classroom

Yeah, that's going to help. Surprisingly, at least one feature of this program doesn't suck.

Under Tennessee’s stricter school library law, some books quietly disappear

Tennessee has been a big state for panic over Naughty Books, and Marta Aldrich is reporting on how bad it's getting.

Students prefer teacher feedback over AI feedback, research finds

Behind this completely unsurprising headline, some interesting details from a study of AI paper feedback. Reported by Tanya Peterson.

In an Unprecedented Move, Ohio Is Funding the Construction of Private Religious Schools

Want your taxpayer dollars to go to a private religious school so they can build new facilities? Ohio is the state for you. Eli Hager dropped this surprising story at ProPublica.

Can It Be Constitutional for the Ohio Legislature to Spend our Tax Dollars to Help Churches Build Religious Schools?

Jan Resseger is asking the question, and while the answer should be obvious, certain privatization groups would like to pretend otherwise.

Former Oklahoma teacher says board used 'profoundly stupid work of fiction' to justify revoking license

I wrote about the latest news in the saga of Summer Boismier, but since then she's had a few things to say herself. I think it's safe to say that this whole business has not shut her up.

Does expertise protect against overclaiming false knowledge?

A research paper to prove what you already knew-- people who actually know what they're talking about don't try to pretend to know what they don't know, but people who don't really know what they're talking about will extend their expressions of faux expertise all around the block and back.

Turmoil at Lionheart Academy Endangers Charter School

Lionheart Classical Academy was meant to be the Hillsdale toe in New Hampshire, but it has turned out to be a mess that is in danger of financial collapse according to Damien Fisher at NH Journal. But also--

Who is the mysterious Florida-based landlord and philanthropist of a charter school under scrutiny in Peterborough?

Lionheart's troubles include an investor who's also their landlord, who's in Florida and who nobody has really met. Jeremy Margolis in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.

The Haitian Community and What We Teach Ourselves

Jose Luis Vilson again. He's on a roll this week. Here he looks at our problematic relationship with immigration and schools and society.

‘A violation against free speech’ | Penn State removes Collegian newspapers from campus

Penn State is trying to pick a fight with the student newspaper The Collegian. As the father of an alumnus, I am not impressed by the school.

Bomb Threats in Schools

Nancy Flanagan looking back on one of many teachers' less beloved memories--the bomb scare. And here we are again, for even worse reasons.

People thinking without speaking, part three

Benjamin Riley talks to an MIT neuroscientist about language and thinking and consciousness and this may make your head hurt a little, but it's cool stuff.

The Hidden Factors Influencing College Admissions Decisions

Akil Bello really knows this stuff. Here's some real advice about getting into college, from Word In Black. Plus Bello does this really cool thing where he publishes on his blog the stuff that got cut out of the original-- so you can get the rest of that piece right here. 

Watch and Share This Video.

If you haven't yet seen the Schoolhouse Rock style video for Project 2025, Sue Kingery Woltanski has you covered, plus some commentary. 

You can join me on substack for reliable appearances of my stuff in your email inbox.

Does Teacher Pay Matter?

Over at her substack, Anne Lutz Fernandez has an excellent piece entitled "Yes, What We Pay Teachers Matters." Like most everything Fernandez writes, it is absolutely on target (you should be subscribing to her if you don't already) and I just want to underline it, then wave my arms and holler "And furthermore...!"

Fernandez is looking at a new report from Sylvia Allegretto at the Economic Policy Institute that shows, among other things, that the teacher pay penalty-- the gap between teacher pay and pay for similarly-educated professionals-- has been growing over the last three decades to reach an all-time high. The gappage appears to have accelerated in the mid-90s.

Some, like the folks at Reason magazine cited by Fernandez, argue that it's not so bad because blah blah blah shuffling numbers around. But considering averages and other benefits does not improve the picture. 

Fernandez also notes the other perennial argument against paying teachers well-- teachers don't care about money and they aren't motivated by it and boy do my old fart hackles raise at every similar argument posted by someone who also posts that damned stupid "Teachers do it for the outcome, not the income" meme. 

Teaching is nor supposed to be some act of self-sacrifice, immolating yourself so that you can illuminate the lives of students. For one thing, it's not sustainable. It's not even functional, because (as they don't tell you in teacher school), you can give every last atom of yourself and it won't be enough. You will burn out early, and--bitterest of ironies--you won't even be very good at it, because what can a person who has no life of their own teach students about life?

Don't get me wrong-- teaching is absolutely a noble and supremely worthwhile profession of service. But that doesn't mean teachers shouldn't be paid well. 

But paying teachers more doesn't raise Big Standardized Test scores, some will argue (well. instead of "raise test scores" they'll say "improve student achievement" or "increase teacher effectiveness," but that just means "raise test scores"). But nobody who is serious about education will argue that the only and most important function of a teacher is to raise test scores.

The "teacher shortage" is the least mysterious issue in education. Here's Fernandez:

Of the ten states with the worst teacher shortages, the majority have pay penalties worse than the national average. But across the nation, shortages are worst in high-poverty schools, where teachers tend to be paid less. Given that these are the schools serving some of our most vulnerable children, teachers in them should be paid more—a lot more. Instead, we have had decades of chronic underinvestment in schools, particularly in urban and rural areas. This is the case in red states and blue states, as decades of austerity have denied lower-income neighborhoods and towns the resources for decent infrastructure and staffing.

Teacher shortages are both a recruiting and retention problem. The solution is not either/or: Keeping the best teachers requires competitive pay and better working conditions. I’ve written elsewhere about some of the bad ideas going around about how to solve the teacher shortage and about how some working conditions can be improved so teachers can teach more effectively. The only evidence of teachers being paid and treated poorly is not the sound of doors slamming behind them. We should be at least as worried about the effects of teachers working under stress or moving between schools as we are about them quitting the profession.

Exactly. Nor do teachers who are struggling with their professional situation make a great advertisement for the profession. I don't think it's any coincidence that the number of people choosing to enter the profession came about when students graduated from high school after twelve years of test-centered schooling had stripped autonomy from teaching.

Look, nobody enters teaching hoping to become super-wealthy. But money is power and choice. When you're twenty-something, maybe you are less bothered by having less power and choice about things like where you live and what you drive. But eventually that lack of power over your circumstances may start to chafe. And it's one thing to say, "Well, I can manage doing without some nice clothes because I'm doing noble work" to yourself and quite another to tell a spouse or your children that they have limited options because you're teaching.

And while teachers have been losing economic power, they've also been losing professional power. Not that it was ever great for some folks--it's not hard to find teachers who can tell stories of being treated like one of the students instead of like a responsible grown up professional. Add on NCLB and Common Core, both predicated on the idea that 1) schools were packed with terrible incompetent teachers and 2) we'll assume you're one of them until you prove otherwise. Teach to the test. Implement these materials with fidelity. Align your instruction strictly to these standards created by people who 
have never done your job.

Sometimes, money isn't just money. Look at the very rich--they don't need to make a few hundred thousand more because they need to be able to purchase more stuff. But money is a way for them to keep score-- "I made money on this, so I must be right and smart and winning!" 

I'd argue that in the context of a profession that has been stripped of power and autonomy, low pay becomes just one more poke in the eye. That's why increased pay, while it would certainly improve conditions, would not by itself be a complete fix. Paying people more while you keep treating them poorly will not turn the tide.

There are credible arguments that the "teacher shortage" is Not That Bad, though at least in my neck of the woods, superintendents would disagree. Some teachers are making a decent living, and some schools are doing okay with staffing. Some states are doing well at recruiting, and some are doing well at lowering the standards for the profession.

But the teacher pay penalty is one more symptom of two issues that are fundamental to so many of our education debates-- the desire to avoid paying one cent more than we absolutely have to for public school funding, and the desire not to pay taxes to educate Those Peoples' Children. Both of those desires are getting full expression in the privatization movement. 

Better working conditions for teachers would lead to a better education system. Better working conditions lead to more interest in the field, which means school districts can be more selective. Those better working conditions include a broad collection of factors, including better supports, better disciplinary backup, better curricula and instructional materials, better physical setting, and yes--better pay. It could be done. But I'm not going to hold my breath. 

Not Choice, But Capture

There are people who really do support school choice, but over on the right, you will find those aren't really interested in school choice at all, and every once in a while, they say so. Take this post from Daniel Buck, former teacher and current Young Conservative Facer at the Fordham Institute (we've met him before here and here and here). 

This is not fond hopes for the day when dozens of different sorts of schools bloom and everyone can pick the one that best suits them. 

This is not about choice. It'[s about capturing the education system so that young humans can be taught the correct way to behave and think. It's about trying to eradicate a way of thinking and being that folks on the right disapprove of. 

Buck is certainly not the first or only person to make versions of this argument.

Parents Defending Education, an activist astro-turf group, has published viewpoints like an "investigative report" complaining that LGBTQ charters are "indoctrinating: kids at taxpayer expense. More than a few politicians who wave the school choice flag also oppose school choice involving Certain Viewpoints. And there's an absolutely ridiculous piece of "scholarship" from the Heritage Foundation trying to discredit charter schools for being woker than public schools, because choice is supposed to provide a variety of educational viewpoints, except not Those Viewpoints.

For large chunks of the choicer world, the whole "school choice" argument is a smokescreen, a mask, and a lie. There is no interest in any sort of robust educational ecosystem-- just an educational system that is full of their preferred worldview.

When someone like Ron DeSantis or Ryan Walters tells you that he favors school choice and he also favors making illegal all references to certain "divisive topics" and gender stuff, he is telling you that all his talk about school choice is bullshit. 

It's one of those times when you can tell what someone's goals are by what they don't say. A school choice fan who believed what he was saying would look at a city where Woke Academy was next door to MAGA High and say, "Look! This is working just like it's supposed to." Not "We have to either burn Woke Academy to the ground or regain control of it by restaffing it with anti-woke teachers. 

For many pretending to be choicers, the real goal is a two-pronged capture. One hand works at capturing the public system with rules that impose the preferred anti-woke values on public schools, while the other hand seeks to replace the public system with a system that follows only the preferred ideology. Neither of these hands is interested in actual school choice.

There are conversations and debates to be had about the topic of school choice and the topic of ideological "purification" of the country's education system, but it's hard to have those conversations when some folks insist on pretending that they're talking about one thing when they're really talking about something else. 

OK: License Stripping May Have Been Illegal

The Saga of Summer Boismier, the teacher who dared to provide students with a link to a library that would loan books, is still not over. If you're new to this tale, I'll provide back story here, but if you're ready for the latest installment in this tale of education dudebro-in-chief Ryan Walters and his quest to punish wokitude, you can skip down the page.

Our story so far

Back in September of 2022, after Oklahoma had unveiled HB 1775, its own version of a Florida-style reading restriction law, Norma High School English teacher Boismier drew flak for covering some books in her classroom with the message "Books the state doesn't want you to read." Apparently even worse, she posted the QR code for the Brooklyn Public Libraries new eCard for teens program, which allows teens from all over the country to check out books, no matter how repressive or restrictive state or local rules they may live under.

She was suspended by the district, which said that this was about her "personal political statements" and a "political display" in the classroom. Boismier told The Gothamist

I saw this as an opportunity for my kids who were seeing their stories hidden to skirt that directive. Nowhere in my directives did it say we can't put a QR code on a wall

The suspension was brief, but Boismier decided this was not the kind of atmosphere in which she wanted to work, so she resigned, citing a culture of fear, confusion and uncertainty in schools, fomented by Oklahoma Republicans.

That wasn't enough to satisfy Walters, at the time campaigning for office. The whole business had been a high-profile brouhaha, so Candidate Walters popped up to put his two cents in via a letter that he posted on Twitter.

Saying that "providing access to banned and pornographic material is unacceptable" and "There is no place for a teacher with a liberal political agenda in the classroom," Walters called for Boismier's license to be revoked.  He made hounding her a campaign platform. And he called her out by name, arguing that the public do not want "activist teachers in classrooms" and that it's super important that "we continue to protect our kids from indoctrination. "Yes, this the same who later mandated that every teacher must use the Bible as a teaching tool in their classroom.

That, of course, led in true MAGA fashion to a flood of vulgarity and death threats directed at Boismier as reported by KFOR:

“These teachers need to be taken out and shot,” “teachers like this should not only be fired but also should be swinging from a tree,” “If Summer tried this in Afghanistan, they’d cut out her tongue for starters,” are just a minuscule fraction of the threats pouring into Summer Boismier’s inbox.

Boismier was unwilling to put up with all of this. When Walters continued to try to strip her teaching license (even though in December of 2022 she took a job at the Brooklyn Library), Boismier used a quirk of Oklahoma law to demand a trial-like hearing to dispute the department of education decision.

At that hearing in June of 2023, Assistant Attorney General Liz Stephens recommended against taking Boismier's license, saying the state failed to prove that Boismier had broken the law. Let me repeat: the Assistant AG of the state said that Walters had no case.

Boismier wasn't done. In August of 2023, she filed a defamation lawsuit against Walters. Walters filed a motion to dismiss in January of this year, and U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Jones (Oklahoma's first Black magistrate and elevated to the district court by Donald Trump) denied the motion to dismiss. Walters had alleged that Boismier was a sort of public figure, and that malice on his part couldn't be shown. The judge disagreed, saying her case looks solid enough to proceed. So that lawsuit will continue winding through the court.

Meanwhile, the state board and Walters continued to move forward to take Boismier's license. As reported by Murray Evans at The Oklahoman, they decided hold yet another hearing to "finalize the revocation" in March. Only there's a problem with that plan. In March, all of the department's attorneys quit, so they had no lawyers with which to hold a legal-type proceeding. They've postponed action until May. Once again, Walters had shot himself in the foot by just being lousy at his job.

In June, a revocation order was written, charging among other things that she violated HB 1775 including the charge that she "intended to entice her students to seek out and read" naughty books. Spicy stuff. By August, the Oklahoma State Board of Education voted to strip Boismier of her license. Reported M. Scott Cart and Murray Evans for The Oklahoman:

“She (Boismier) broke the law,” Walters said [speaking to reporters after the meeting]. “And I said from the beginning, when you have a teacher that breaks the law, said she broke the law, (and) said she will continue to break the law — that can’t stand.”

Walters said he wanted Oklahomans to be very clear that Oklahoma State Department of Education would hold teachers accountable. “The Legislature passes laws, we have rules, teacher code of conduct that goes along with those things ― those will be enforced. I wanted every parent to know they have the best teacher possible in their kid’s classroom.”

The Newest Update (And Newest Screw-Up From The Department of Ed)

"We have rules" turns out to be a pretty flexible statement in light of what was revealed when folks finally got a look at the revocation order.

Way back in 2021, a whole coalition of folks filed a lawsuit against HB 1775, and in June of this year, a federal court granted a preliminary instruction to halt significant portions of that law, including the parts about teaching banned concepts in K-12 classrooms. 

Specifically, the injunction was issued almost two weeks before Walters office wrote up the order to revoke Boismier's license for violating the law they had been told they couldn't yet enforce.

You might think that maybe they just hadn't gotten word yet, as Walters office is kind of a mess. But no -- they knew HB 1775 was stayed because they included a footnote saying that nothing in the revocation order relied on parts of HB 1775 that were subject to the preliminary injunction. So it was based on some part of HB 1775 not covered by the injunction, and that part would be...? The revocation order does not say. It does not point to which part of HB 1775 they say she violated.

As State Senator Mary Boren put it (as quoted by Spencer Humphrey at KFOR) :

They didn’t even dissect anything out of 1775. I think that’s very curious to me that that they think that they can get away with enforcing House Bill 1775 and try to cover themselves in a footnote.

 Boismier herself sent a statement to KFOR:

As we expected, the order we received today doesn’t hold up to any serious scrutiny. It should be an easy call for the courts to overturn it, since Walters chose to throw out the actual facts and law in the case to get the results he wanted and campaigned on. We will be heading to district court soon to do that. But sadly, until we get that court order, Oklahoma teachers now apparently have to fear getting their licenses revoked for criticizing the wrong politician or showing students how to get a library card.

So the end of this story is not yet in sight. There are still lessons to be learned about whose rules matter and who has to follow them and what happens when ambitious politicians decide to make harassment part of their campaign platform and go all cultural revolution on Americans. Stay tuned. 

 

ICYMI: CMO Birthday Weekend Edition (9/15)

This weekend we're celebrating the birthday of the Chief Marital Officer here at the Curmudgucation Institute. The board of directors has selected some nice gifts, and there will be cake. May your weekend have some cake in it as well. But for right now, here's some reading.

Motivation to learn is just as important as intelligence, study finds

There's not a lot of rigor in this article, but there are some charts.

Students aren’t benefiting much from tutoring, one new study shows

At Hechinger, Jill Barshay adds another item for the "Research Proves Things You Already Knew" file. Scaling up tutoring to fix pandemic learning loss turns out to be a not so great plan after all.

Who Knew Tutoring Wouldn’t Be a Huge Success, or How I Learned to Frivolously Spend Tax Payer Money Without Really Trying

That study was in Nashville, so TC Weber has some on-the-ground observations about the whole thing. Turns out he could have saved the researchers a little time.

Tennessee parents, teachers, advocates push back against school voucher proposal

Meanwhile, the voucher debates are still raging in Tennessee. Tori Gessner covers for WKRN.

Texas Jews Say State’s New Bible-Influenced Curriculum Is ‘Wildly Problematic’

What a shocker. Greg Abbott's Christianity-infused curriculum is filled with issues for people of other faiths. Linda Jacobson covers the story for The 74.

Oklahoma schools resist the order to teach from the Bible in classrooms

NPR picks up the ongoing story of school districts in Oklahoma saying "No, thanks" to Ryan Walters' directive to teach the Bible. Short but sweet.

'I want to throw up': Committee members dismayed over social studies standards draft

Walters hired a bunch of right wing amateurs to concoct social studies standards for Oklahoma. Now the members of the original committee have seen the results, and they are not happy.

Another Oklahoma Education Blunder

So many, but Thomas Ultican writes about the fake test score improvement and a few other of Walters greatest hits.

Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Need Help!

Nancy Bailey reports on the mental health crisis among children, and what we are or are not doing about it.

5 local school board members say doing more with less won’t sustain Utah public education

This story is from Utah, but the subjects under debate are familiar in all states. And that includes the growing concern over mental health issues.

America is over the ‘Moms For Liberty’ culture wars

Svante Myrick at The Hill offers another piece suggesting that Moms for Liberty are past their sell-by date. Their last summit, she reports, "was a flop."

In Red States, the Bill for School Voucher Bait-and-Switch Is Coming Due

Jennifer Berkshire and Jack Schneider point out that the privatizers defunding the schools project is well under way. Worth battling The Nation's super-annoying website to read this.

NC public schools feel "suffocated" by lack of funding as voucher deal advances

North Carolina continues its race to the bottom by hollowing out public school funding so that rich folks can have a private school tuition rebate. Alexandria Sands at AXIOS Charlotte.

Most NC adults don't support private school voucher expansion, new WRAL poll shows

Not that it matters to the heavily-gerrymandered legislators who pushed this through.

In 2020, President Trump Set Out to Impose His Own Preferred U.S. History Curriculum on All U.S. Public Schools

Jan Resseger looks back at Donald Trump's attempt to impose patriotic education on US schools, and why it's one more warning about the damage he would do in a second term.

Voucher Boondoggle: House Advances Plan to Give the Wealthy $1.20 for Every $1 They Steer to Private K-12 Schools

The feds are back to looking at yet another variation on the DeVosian national tax credit scholarship program. This one has some wrinkles to make it profitable for the rich folk involved. This piece from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy is an excellent explainer of how this kind of program would work.

We Need a “Freezing Cold Takes” for Education

If you can get past the extreme irony that it's Rick Hess writing this, it's a fun piece calling for "professional accountability for the empty suits who flit from one edu-fad to the next."

All-charter no more: New Orleans opens its first traditional public school in nearly 2 decades

Speaking of failed edu-fads, remember when New Orleans would be proof-of-concept for an all-charter school system? Yeah, that didn't work, and now the tide is turning. Ariel Gilreath at Chalkbeat.

Disaster

Andy Spears writes briefly about the charter school that nobody wanted and which students are now deserting in droves. 

Post-apocalyptic education

Ethan Mollick is talking about the AI-fueled homework apocalypse, which he says has already arrived. Now what?

High Schoolers Need to Do Less So That They Can Do Better

An actual high school teacher writing a guest essay for the New York Times, arguing in favor of stopping the teenaged rat race

I was busy elsewhere this week. At the Bucks County Beacon, I wrote a piece about Pennsylvania's premiere right wing school board policy shop trying to look more secular. 

At Forbes.com, a look at an attempt to undo decades of school funding reform, and the surprise move by the South Carolina Supreme Court to strike down their voucher program. 

Also had the experience--again--this week of having META take down a posting of one of my pieces because some bot judged it to be spam. These days substack seems the most reliable way to get my stuff out into the world. Consider signing up if you haven't already. 

CO: A Bonkers School Choice Constitutional Amendment

While other states are stumbling over constitutional language that aims public dollars at public schools (e.g. South Carolina and Kentucky), voucher fans in Colorado have proposed a constitutional amendment that comes up for a vote soon. And it is a ridiculously ill-conceived and hastily crafted mess.

The language is simple enough-- here's the whole text, originally known as Initiative 138 and  Amendment 40, now known as Amendment 80. . 

SECTION 1. In the constitution of the state of Colorado, add section, 18 to article IX as follows: Section 18. Education - School Choice

(1) PURPOSE AND FINDINGS. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF COLORADO HEREBY FIND AND DECLARE THAT ALL CHILDREN HAVE THE RIGHT TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO ACCESS A QUALITY EDUCATION; THAT PARENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO DIRECT THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN; AND THAT SCHOOL CHOICE INCLUDES NEIGHBORHOOD, CHARTER, PRIVATE, AND HOME SCHOOLS, OPEN ENROLLMENT OPTIONS, AND FUTURE INNOVATIONS IN EDUCATION.

(2) EACH K-12 CHILD HAS THE RIGHT TO SCHOOL CHOICE.

The proposal comes from Advance Colorado, a right wing anti-tax, let's shrink government until we can drown it in the kitchen sink, kind of outfit. They're headed up by Michael Fields, who previously headed up the Colorado chapter of the right wing Koch brothers astroturf group Americans for Prosperity, then became AFP's national education policy leader. Then on to Colorado Rising Action where he kept his interest in education. Back in 2012-14 he spent two whole years as a Teacher For America product in a charter school. 

Advance Colorado was founded in 2020. Their leadership team also includes former state GOP chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown.

The amendment has also drawn support from House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, who is also a "fellow" with Advance Colorado. The actual filing came from Fields and Suzanne Taheri, a former official with the Secretary of State's Office, a former candidate, and former Arapahoe County GOP chair.

Why does Colorado, a state that has long offered many forms of school choice, even need this? Supporters of the amendment are arguing that they are trying to enshrine and protect choice, just in case those naughty Democrats tried to roll it back some day (Colorado's Dems once tossed out the pro-choice, not-really-Democrats Democrats for Education Reform). And though they aren't saying this part out loud, the amendment would be a great set-up for school vouchers.

The language proposed is, however, strictly bananapants. And I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the people who would most regret passing this amendment would be those who support it.

Let's say I want to send my low-achieving, non-Christian child to a top-level Christian school. Let's further presume that I can't afford even a fraction of the tuition cost. Does this amendment mean that the school has to accept them, and that the state has to foot the entire tuition bill? Wouldn't any answer other than yes be denying my constitutional to equal opportunity to access a quality education and my constitutional right to direct my child's education? Does this mean that to have full access the state must also transport my child anywhere I want them to go to school?

What if East Egg Academy has far more applicants than it has capacity? Must it scratch its entire admissions policy and use a lottery instead? 

The major obstacles to school choice are not state policies. The major obstacles are, and have always been, cost, location, and the school's own discriminatory policies. Virtually all voucher policies are set up to protect those discriminatory policies. Wouldn't an amendment like this require those to be wiped out? 

Wouldn't this language amount to a state takeover of all charter and private schools? 

And that's not all. Wouldn't this amendment also allow parents to intrude into every classroom. If I have a constitutional right to direct my child's education, does that not mean that I can tell my child's science teacher to stop teaching evolution? Or start teaching evolution? Can I demand a different approach to teaching American history? How about prepositions? And how will a classroom teacher even function if every child in the classroom comes with a parent who has a constitutional right to direct their education?

You can say that's silly, that "obviously" that's not what the amendment means. But that's what it says, at least until some series of bureaucrats and courts decide what exactly "direct the education of their children" means.

Kevin Welner (National Education Policy Center) has it exactly right-- "It's really a 'full employment for lawyers' act."

Supporters say this doesn't establish a right to public funding of private schools, and I suppose they're sort of correct in the sense that this does not so much establish a right to public funding of private schools so much as it establishes an obligation for public funding of private schools as well as obliterating private school autonomy. Unless, of course, some judge steps in to find that the language doesn't mean what it says, which is, I suppose, not impossible.

Nobody on any side of the school choice debate should be voting for this amendment. It's exactly the kind of lawmaking you get from people who have wrapped meaning in particular rhetoric for so long that they have forgotten that the words of their rhetoric have actual meanings outside the meanings that they have habitually assigned them. Here's hoping the people of Colorado avoid this really bad idea. 

ALEC Has A New Voucher Push

ALEC has set a new goal-- 25 by 2025. That means having 25 states adopt school voucher programs by the end of next year. To push that goal, ALEC has a new initiative called the Education Freedom Alliance, and it is a scary crew.

Who is ALEC?

The American Legislative Exchange Council is a bill mill. It brings conservative legislators and conservative business folks together to write legislation that the legislators then take back to their states. They used to be fairly under the radar, but for the last decade, folks have been catching on. 

ALEC was co-founded by Paul Weyrich, who also co-founded the Heritage Foundation. The group was launched in 1973 as the Conservative Caucus of State Legislators. Their interests extend to pretty much every area of legislation, and that includes an Education and Workplace Development task force.. They get piles of funding from the Bradley Foundation and Charles Koch, and you can spend hours traveling down the ALEC rabbit hole. They have many goals, including huge ones like rewriting the Constitution and just generally turning America into a right wing paradise. 

Who are their partners this time?

Teaming up as leads on the EFA are the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, and the Job Creators Network.

Job Creators Network was founded by Bernie Marcus, the Home Depot founder. Herman Cain had a hand in it, too, though JCN later disavowed him. They have big ties to Rick Berman, a "win ugly" anti-union media guy who specializes in front groups. Their CEO, Alfredo Ortiz, had a hand in helping pass the tax cut bill in 2017. They were big on reopening school buildings during COVID, and helped promote hydroxychloroquine. Funded by small businesses? Unlikely. 

The Committee To Unleash Prosperity is cut from similar cloth. Founded by Arthur Laffer (the Laffer Curve guy) and Stephen Moore, both ALEC stalwarts, along with Steve Forbes and Larry Kudlow. Moore is the founder of Club For Growth, yet another right wing budget-killing activist group of rich folks. Their goal was to "take over" the GOP fundraising and drag the party far right; they have been reliable Trump allies. Moore has been in a variety of thinky tanks, including CATO and the Heritage Foundation.

The CUP website says of its Executive Director that he "keeps the trains running on time." 

So this is ALEC teaming up with a couple of other right wing outfits. And though this is not news, I will point out that none of these groups has the slightest bit of expertise in actual education. Just saying.

Besides the three coalition leaders, there's a whole list of partners, including American Federation for Children, Americans for Prosperity, Center for Education Reform, EdChoice, Goldwater Institute, Heritage Foundation, Kansas Policy Institute, James Madison Institute, Parents Defending Education, Reason Foundation, Stride, and yes every kid. It's a Who's Who of privatizers (and a pretty good list of people who abandoned the charter and school choice cause once they smelled a chance to go full voucher).

So what's the plan here?

There's nothing new in the rhetoric from EFA. Here's the welcoming paragraph from their home page:

The Education Freedom Alliance believes public education dollars can and should follow the student, not the system. Our current “one-size-fits-all” system of public education simply does not work for every student or every family. While there are plenty of students who do perform at their highest level in their local public school, every child is unique, and states should provide parents with options for their children to thrive through policies promoting education freedom.

It's the current voucher pitch-- we're no longer trying to sell them as refuge for students stuck in "failing" schools, because we now know that the data shows that vouchers aren't better at all. And voucherites have fully adopted the goal of universal vouchers because A) it gets them closer to full privatization and B) rich, well-connected people make way better political allies than poor people.  

There's an assortment of "updates" aka PR pieces for the cause that reflect another key tactic-- to go after vouchers state by state. "Fighting for parental rights and education freedom--one state at a time" is in bold font on their page. Voucherites in Congress haven't given up--the House just advanced yet another bill for national vouchers (also ALEC-spawned). But it's likely doomed like all the previous attempts, and EFA's state-by-state strategy may also be a recognition that the election in November isn't necessarily going to result in a friendly administration. IOW, ALEC may smell some Trumpian flop sweat.

If you're wondering whether or not you're on ALEC's voucher hit list, there's a map. There are all the states where they hope to install universal vouchers by the end of 2025. In some cases, the efforts are already under way, and in others they have tried over and over. 

Of course, in zero cases do they plan to achieve their goal by putting it to public vote, because when taxpayers choose, vouchers lose.

But that's the scary part--because crafting and passing legislation that favors their priorities is what ALEC does. They have the connections, the pipelines, the money, and the experience doing this sort of thing, and they've lined up all the privatization heavy hitters to help out. It's one more reason to get involved in the upcoming election and to pay close attention to what your legislature is up to. Privatizers believe their time has come, and they are ready to push hard.