David Pepper blasts the Republican legislators in Ohio for relieving private voucher schools of any burdens associated with transparency and accountability, while simultaneously threatening to close the public schools with the lowest test scores every year.
He writes about the dangerous shenanigans of the gang in the Legislature that hates public schools:
So the bill that impressed me was an attempt to do something about this growing black hole.
Specifically, the bill would have:
2) required that private schools receiving vouchers administer the same standardized tests that public school students take, allowing an apples to apples comparison of the private school’s performance;
1) required that private schools receiving vouchers provide an annual report on how they are spending the public dollars they receive (and post that report on-line);
3) required that schools provide data on the income of students/families that receive vouchers along with other scholarships. (In states like Ohio, where they have removed all income limitations on vouchers recipients, the vast majority of voucher recipients were already attending, and could already afford, the private school they now use the voucher to pay for).
Again, these would be the bare minimum of safeguards for this out-of-control approach.
Which is, of course, exactly why the provisions were ultimately stripped out of the bill that ultimately passed the House Education Committee (where the original bill had been submitted).
Note: One of the points made by private school advocates was that the tests used to measure public school outcomes were not a good measure of the work they did.
So as the billions flow to private schools through vouchers, we taxpayers still don’t know how the funds are actually being spent. And we still don’t have an apples-to-apples comparison to see if all this unaccountable money is actually leading to improved or worse education results. (Other data show the answer is “worse”).
But for Public Schools…Shut them Down
So that’s the treatment of private schools receiving public dollars via vouchers.
But wouldn’t you know it? For Ohio’s publicschools, constantly the target of attack and criticism, we see the exact opposite approach.
Rushing through the current “lame duck” Ohio legislative session is a brand new bill that takes seriously the same standardized tests the voucher-funded private schools convinced lawmakers they need not take (remember, they testified it’s not a good measure of their work). So seriously, the new bill proposes that all Ohio public school buildings that fall in the bottom five and 10 percent of two measures (both determined by standardized tests) for three years be shut down.
Under the bill, local school boards would be forced either “to fire its principal and majority of staff or turn over operations to a private entity, charter, or another district.”
Public school advocates have pointed out many of the flaws of this approach, including that many of the entities that would “take over” these schools have no experience providing K-12 education at all. They’ve also pointed out that this approach bears similarities to the failed top-down approach from a 2015 bill which created Academic Distress Commissions for struggling districts. After stripping away local control, the Commissions did not generate improvements, and the approach was ultimately repealed.
But bigger picture, of course, is the differential treatment of the two systems: One type of publicly funded Ohio schools doesn’t have to provide even the bare minimum of accountability and transparency, while the other set would face turmoil and even shutdowns for failing to meet certain criteria not applied to the first group.
It’s yet another blatant tipping of the scales towards privatizing public education.
Take Action
They are trying to rush this bill through the Ohio Senate’s Education Committee tomorrow. Here are steps you can take to stop it:
- Tell Committee Chair Andrew Brenner NOT TO PASS the school closure bill:
- Tell your state senator to vote NO on SB 295 and vote NO on ANY bill that contains school closure language
- Contact your State Rep. Tell them the Ohio Senate is trying to pass a massive new school closure bill (SB 295) without any input from the House. Ask them, “Shouldn’t the House get a say on this issue??”
- WHAT TO SAY:
- SB 295 would remove local control from elected school board members and parents
- The state should not be making big, closed-door decisions with little to no community involvement.
- Our students deserve safe, equitable, fully-resourced, engaging schools in their own area! In most cases, closing local schools is bad for our communities and bad for Ohio. In ALL cases, parents and students should be heavily involved in the decision-making processes!
- FOR MORE INFORMATION:
