Tag Archives: ALEC

An In-Depth Account of the Culture War Attack on Public Schooling

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The pundits on television were not talking about public education on Tuesday night, but public school policy loomed large as an election issue nonetheless.

The Wall Street Journal recently previewed the school board election in Frederick County, Maryland: “Three conservative school board candidates have been knocking on doors… in the run-up to the midterms, campaigning with a message that they will curb what they say is the injection of misguided ideas about gender, sexuality and race in classroom instruction…. The group, calling itself Education Not Indoctrination and backed by a political-action committee pumping money into similar efforts around the U.S., will square off in Tuesday’s election against a four-candidate slate supported by teachers unions…. The spirited race in central Maryland mirrors a continuing fight for control of the elected bodies that oversee public schools nationwide… The nonpartisan election site Ballotpedia is tracking about 500 school board races around the U.S. in which candidates have highlighted Covid-19 policies, race in education, or sex and gender issues.”

It may take a while to sort out what happened in all these races on Tuesday, but for an in-depth explanation of what has been happening more broadly in the public school culture war and who’s behind it, please read Paige Williams’ profile of Moms for Liberty in the November 7, 2022 New Yorker magazine.

What is Moms for Liberty? Williams connects all the dots: disruption of school board meetings—policy from the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and ALEC—Christopher Rufo—dark money—right wing media—attacks on a well-vetted language arts curriculum—an assault on honest teaching about racism and the Civil War—and attacks on LGBTQ rights.

Williams locates her story in the Williamson County School District in Tennessee—upscale, suburban Nashville.  But Williamson County Schools are a microcosm of a well-funded nationwide phenomenon that merely appears to spring up locally.

In Williamson County, the target is the district’s Wit & Wisdom language arts curriculum—a packaged, widely used reading curriculum, described here by its publisher: “Wit & Wisdom is designed to let students ‘read books they love while building knowledge of important topics’ in literature, science, history and art. By immersing students in ‘content-rich’ topics that spark lively discussion the curriculum prepares them to tackle more complicated texts.”

Although the school district had carefully selected and vetted its curriculum, “seemingly out of nowhere Wit & Wisdom became the target of intense criticism. At first, the campaign in Williamson County was cryptic: stray e-mails, phone calls, public-information requests. Eric Welch, who was first elected to the school board in 2010, told me that the complainers ‘wouldn’t just e-mail us—they would copy the county commission, our state legislative delegation, and state representatives in other counties… It was obviously an attempt to intimidate.”

The school district responded: “(T)he district assembled a reassessment team to review the curriculum and the adoption process. At a public work session in June, 2021, the team announced that, after a preliminary review, it hadn’t found any violations of protocol. Teachers had spent a full workday familiarizing themselves with Wit & Wisdom before implementing it… The review committee ultimately concluded that Wit & Wisdom had been an over-all success… Moms for Liberty members were portraying Wit & Wisdom as ‘critical race theory’ in disguise.”

Williams traces the movement back to its beginning, “when, in early December, 2020, the American Legislative Exchange Council… hosted a Webinar about ‘reclaiming education and the American dream.’ A representative of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, warned that elements of a ‘Black Lives Matter curriculum’ were ‘now in our schools.’… Last November, Glenn Youngkin a candidate for the governorship of Virginia won an upset victory after repeatedly warning that the ‘curriculum has gone haywire’–and promising to sign an executive order banning C.R.T. from schools… Days after the ALEC Webinar on ‘reclaiming education,’ three women in Florida filed incorporation papers for Moms for Liberty, Inc. … A national phalanx of interconnected organizations—including the Manhattan Institute, where (Christopher) Rufo is a fellow, and a group called Moms for America—supported the suite of talking points about C.R.T… Glenn Beck, the right-wing pundit, declared that C.R.T. is a ‘poison,’ urging his audience, ‘Stand up in your community and fire the teachers. Fire them!'”

Williams portrays the chaos, pain and damage wrought by Moms for Liberty in Williamson County, but leaders there warn others that what appears to be local is a much broader phenomenon: “Anne McGraw, the former Williamson County School Board member, told me that the advent of Moms for Liberty ‘shows how hyper-local the national machine is going with their tactics… Moms for Liberty is not in Podunk, America. They’re going into hyper-educated wealthy counties like this, and trying to get those people to doubt the school system that brought us here.'”

What is the ultimate goal? Williams worries: “Progressives and policy experts have long suspected that right-wing attacks on school boards are less about changing curricula than about undermining the entire public school system, in the hope of privatizing education. During the ALEC Webinar about ‘reclaiming education,’ the Heritage Foundation representative declared that ‘school choice’ would become ‘very important in the next couple of years’; controversies about curricula, he said, were ‘opening up an opportunity for policymakers at the state level’ to consider options like charter schools.”

Williams concludes with a warning from Rebecca Jacobsen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University: “Is this a blip and we’ll rebound? Or are we chipping away at our largest public institution and the system that has been at the center of our democracy since the founding of this country?”

Far-Right Organizations Work With Ohio Legislators to Privatize Public Education

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Ohio is overrun with far-right advocates pushing the privatization of public education through the expansion of both vouchers and charter schools and with people spreading alarm about public school teaching of divisive subjects. This should not be surprising in our notoriously gerrymandered Republican state legislature. Here are some of the extremist organizations whose lobbyists counsel our legislators, help them draft legislation, and make political donations.

The Buckeye Institute

Sourcewatch describes this Ohio organization: “The Buckeye Institute…  is a right-wing advocacy group based in Ohio. It is a member of the $120 million-a-year State Policy Network (SPN), a web of state pressure groups that denote themselves as “think tanks” and drive a right-wing agenda in statehouses nationwide.”  Sourcewatch further describes the State Policy Network: “SPN groups  operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy and state-based support.”

On Tuesday of last week, The Buckeye Institute released a new report outlining its strategy for helping students “regain lost learning” during the pandemic:  “In its new policy report… The Buckeye Institute outlines how empowering parents, funding students first, and enhancing school choice can counteract the ill effects the pandemic had on learning loss for Ohio’s K-12 students.”  While The Buckeye Institute claims to focus on individual students in its response to the past two years of COVID disruption, the new report doesn’t mention students at all. There is nothing about giving students extra attention in smaller classes or more enrichments and activities to make school exciting or more counselors and mental health support. Instead the report addresses the more abstract issues of school ownership and governance. In essence universal marketplace school choice via vouchers is the solution: “The report offers four commonsense policy solutions that will improve the K-12 academic experience:

  • “Broad-Based Education Savings Accounts: Create a broad-based ESA initiative to reform Ohio’s education system and its long-standing government-run education monopoly…
  • “Universal Open Enrollment: Make it easier for all families to send students to their school of choice by requiring all Ohio public schools to participate in inter-district open enrollment.
  • “Expanded Tax Credit Scholarships: Increase the maximum tax credit from its current $750 limit to $2,500 to make it easier for grant organizations to offer larger scholarships (vouchers) to more students in need.
  • “Enhanced Spending Transparency: Require all public school districts to operate more transparently by sharing their spending data with parents in Ohio Checkbook.”

The Center for Christian Virtue

The Center for Christian Virtue recently purchased an office building across the street from the Statehouse in Columbus to bring the organization right into the center of power in Ohio. One of the Center for Christian Virtue’s new initiatives is to help locate private religious schools in churches—schools that qualify for tax-funded EdChoice vouchers. For the Statehouse News Bureau, Jo Ingles reports: “A new, private school has been commissioned in Columbus, but it’s not like many others… Inside the walls of the Memorial Baptist Church on the west side of Columbus, classrooms normally used for Sunday church services are being readied for kindergarten through second grade students who have been going to local public schools. That’s according to Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, a conservative Christian organization. He said seven churches came together to create this new model school. This is a pilot project for the Center for Christian Virtue. And the group said it’s just the first of many that will use church facilities for a private Christian school.”  “Children who enroll in the school this year can use state money through Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship Program to pay for their tuition because they will fit the income or school attendance area guidelines… Other Christian-based schools are now receiving money from the EdChoice Scholarship program.”

Ingles adds that, “Baer’s organization is leading the charge for majority Republicans state lawmakers to adopt a bill, commonly called the “backpack” bill, that would expand the Ed Choice Scholarship even more to allow any student, regardless of income or where they live, to use public money for private schools. ”

For the Ohio Capital Journal, Zurie Pope reports that the Center for Christian Virtue has gone farther than merely supporting HB 290, the Backpack Bill.  Members of the Center for Christian Virtue’s staff helped write the language of the bill: “(D)ocuments obtained by the Ohio Capital Journal through a public records request reveal CCV’s involvement in HB 290 has been more extensive than previously known, and included the advice and promotion of outside groups like Heritage Action and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). This past February, a legislative aide for McClain (one of the bill’s sponsors) emailed a draft of the bill to CCV legislative liaison Nilani Jawahar and CCV lobbyist and Ohio Christian Education Network Assistant Director Corine Vidales.”  The Ohio Capital Journal‘s report also names so-called academic research the drafters of the Backpack Bill considered as they were drafting the bill: “Both studies were created by EdChoice, an Indiana-based think tank that advocates for school choice. Ohio’s private school voucher program is also called EdChoice.” Finally, explains Zurie Pope, of the Ohio Capital Journal, the executive director of the Ohio Christian Education Network, Troy McIntosh, “sent a draft of the bill to Stephanie Kruez, a regional director for Heritage Action, the policy arm of the right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation.”

The Thomas Fordham Institute

The Ohio Capital Journal‘s Susan Tebben reports that the Thomas Fordham Institute has joined a lawsuit pushing to overturn reasonable and sensible new rules recently imposed by the U.S. Department of Education to improve oversight of the federal Charter Schools Program. The Fordham Institute functions not only as an Ohio think tank, but also as an approved sponsor of its own Ohio charter schools. Tebben explains: “An Ohio group that supports charter schools has joined in a lawsuit fighting against what they say is ‘hostility’ in rule-making by the U.S. Department of Education. The D.C. and Ohio-based Thomas Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank, spoke as a ‘charter school sponsor’ for the state of Ohio, arguing that rules regulating enrollment and use of charter schools… will ‘disadvantage some or all of the charter schools sponsored by Fordham’… The part of the rule that charter school advocates have a problem with states charter schools would need to prove public schools are over-enrolled, and encourage but don’t require ‘community collaboration’ with fellow school districts.”  The lawsuit Fordham joined claims: “The most successful charter schools are those that provide educational alternatives to under-enrolled schools, not those that simply house excess numbers of students.”  Ohio’s Fordham Institute is supporting the idea that charter schools should operate in competition, not collaboration, with the public school districts in which they are located.  Neither does Fordham worry about the areas in Ohio where too many low quality charter schools with fancy advertising are sucking essential dollars from the public schools that serve the majority of the community’s students.

The Fordham Institute’s Aaron Churchill recently published a detailed set of priorities the Fordham Institute will be advocating this winter when the legislature begins to debate Ohio’s FY 2024-2025 biennial state budget.  Churchill explains that Fordham will lobby to expand the charter school funding formula, expand special targeted assistance for charter schools, raise the facilities alliance to cover building costs, and support a credit enhancement to make building restoration and construction more affordable for charter schools. Fordham will also lobby to make EdChoice vouchers available for all students living in families with income up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level and allow brand new private schools to receive publicly funded vouchers from students even in a private school’s first year of operation. To its credit, Fordham will push to make the academic quality of private schools accepting vouchers more transparent by requiring, for the first time, private schools to release standardized test scores. Fordham will also lobby to make interdistrict public school choice universal across all the districts in the state, removing discretion for local school boards to decide whether to participate.

Hillsdale College Barney Charter School Initiative

In the first of an important three-part expose for SALON last spring, Kathryn Joyce outlined the fast-growing initiative of Michigan’s conservative Christian Hillsdale College to disseminate its Classical Academy curriculum—which is Christian as well as classical—nationwide by encouraging charter schools to incorporate its model curriculum: “Hillsdale is not just a central player, but a ready-made solution for conservatives who seek to reclaim an educational system they believe was ceded decades ago to liberal interests. The college has become a leading force in promoting a conservative and overtly Christian reading of American history and the U.S. Constitution. It opposes progressive education reforms in general and contemporary scholarship on inequality in particular… Across the nation, conservative officials from state leaders to insurgent school board embers are clamoring to implement Hillsdale’s proudly anti-woke lesson plans, including the ‘patriotic education’ premises of its recently released 1776 Curriculum, or add to its growing network of affiliated classical charter schools.”

The NY Times‘ Stephanie Saul explains the Hillsdale College Barney Charter School Initiative’s name: “Hillsdale’s charter school operation… began in 2010 with a grant from the Chicago-based Barney Family Foundation, endowed by Stephen M. Barney, a financial industry executive.  Saul continues: “The Hillsdale charter schools are neither owned nor managed by Hillsdale. Instead, the schools enter agreements to use the Hillsdale curriculum and the college provides training for faculty and staff, as well as other assistance—all free of charge.”

The number of Hillsdale Classical Charter Schools is growing in Ohio.  I currently count four either in operation already or getting set to open: the Cincinnati Classical Academy; the Northwest Ohio Classical Academy in Toledo; the Heart of Ohio Classical Academy in Columbus; and the Southeast Ohio Classical Academy in Athens.  Another Hillsdale Classical Academy is a private school, the Columbus Classical Academy, which, I’m sure, accepts vouchers which have been permitted for religious schools since 2002 under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Zelman v. Simmons Harris.

Four of these schools, however, are charter schools—which Ohio considers public schools.  As schools with an explicitly Christian curriculum, these charter schools, deemed public by Ohio law, raise obvious questions about church-state separation.  After the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Carson v. Makin, a Maine school voucher decision which affirmed the constitutionality of publicly funding schools that explicitly teach religion, perhaps these Ohio Hillsdale charter schools will ultimately be tested with further litigation.

National Education Policy Center’s New Brief on Critical Race Theory Is a Must-Read for All Americans

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The National Education Policy Center’ new brief,  Understanding the Attacks on Critical Race Theory,  is essential reading to support all of us who are puzzled or grieving or outraged by the battle raging across the states about regulating the way public school teachers can teach American history. Or, if you are not aware that these fights have been happening across 26 states, you should definitely read this brief to inform yourself. Far right ideologues are working hard to prevent any discussion about race, racism, and the history of slavery in public school social studies classes.

After all, according to the brief, “Since early 2021, eight states have passed legislation that, broadly speaking, seeks to ban historical information and critical analysis related to race and racism in public school classrooms.” The brief addresses the questions that puzzle many of us.

What is this battle that that is tearing apart state legislatures, state boards of education, and local school boards?

“Since early 2021, eight states have passed legislation that, broadly speaking, seeks to ban historical information and critical analysis related to race and racism in public school classrooms.  Even as many local school boards and state boards of education have been implementing new policies, additional legislation has been or is being, considered in 15 other states and in the U.S. Congress.”  “President Trump issued an Executive Order 13950 in September of 2020 to withhold funding from federal entities that promoted nine categories termed ‘divisive concepts’ as well as race or sex ‘stereotyping’ and ‘scapegoating.’  In December 2020, litigation successfully stayed the order, and in January 2021, President Biden rescinded it. However, at least a half-dozen bills with similar aims and approaches have been introduced in Congress… Republican legislators in 26 states introduced copycat legislation to ban certain types of curriculum… Although the framing of the bills varies somewhat by state, they all attempt to ban the use of ‘divisive concepts’ in employee training programs, in K-12 curriculum, and in certain student activities.”

What is Critical Race Theory (called CRT, for short) and how has the meaning of the original academic concept been turned upside down by far right ideologues?

“Critical Race Theory is an academic legal theory developed in the 1970s by Derrick Bell (and colleagues) to examine how race and racism have shaped American institutions, culture, politics, economics and education and to examine how racism produces and sustains inequality… Given that CRT is a theoretical, analytical framework useful primarily to academic researchers, at first glance it seems an odd target for pundits, think tanks, wealthy donors, foundations, and legislators associated with the ideological right to attack…  The demand that CRT not be taught in schools is absurd, since it would be hard to find a K-12 school that teaches CRT to begin with…  Instead, ideologues are using CRT as a frightening symbol to intensify a collection of cultural and political fears related to race, racism, and the prospect of an increasing number of citizens from marginalized groups participating in the democratic process.”

“Well-established and powerful far Right organizations are driving the current effort to prevent schools from providing historically accurate information about slavery and racist policies and practices, or from examining systemic racism and its manifold impacts.  These organizations include The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Goldwater Institute, Heritage Foundation, Koch family foundations, and Manhattan Institute, as well as billionaire-funded advocacy organizations such as Parents Defending Education and the Legal Insurrection Foundation.”  The brief quotes Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo describing how he set out to change the meaning of Critical Race Theory and politically charge his new concept: “We have successfully frozen their brand—‘critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic.”

What are the political objectives of those promoting attacks on CRT?

“We see two overall political objectives of the anti-CRT attacks.”

(1) “Mobilizing a partisan base for upcoming elections… Far Right lawmakers and advocates saw early on the political potential of attacks on discussion of racial and gender justice in schools… In this context, the anti-CRT legislation is intended to mobilize the Republican base for the 2022 midterm elections….”

(2) “Thwarting efforts to promote racial justice by deflecting debate away from systemic racism and suppressing information about it… Most such bills allude to the premise that if a school teaches about racism, White children will be scapegoated for being White and so will experience feelings of guilt and embarrassment related to their race, which will in turn prompt fear and resentment of people of color—and thus promote racial division. This framing promotes distrust in government and opposition to government efforts to address racism.”

How can citizens—who believe that American history should be taught accurately and who believe our children should consider how our society can better embody our stated goals of liberty and justice for all—most effectively respond to provocative and highly charged attacks on teachers and public school curriculum?

“Some ways of engaging politically are likely to be more successful than others. Strategies that may seem logical, such as denouncing ‘dog-whistle’ politicians for being racist, or avoiding mentioning race in order to avoid accusations of engaging in ‘identity politics,’ are not necessarily the most effective…. Efforts to reframe the debate, engage with decision-makers… are more likely to be successful. Of particular interest and importance is research supporting messaging that acknowledges race and racism, but establishes the shared stake of Americans of all racial backgrounds in public education; that contextualizes social, economic, and educational inequities; that illustrates why inequities should concern Americans of all racial backgrounds; and that provides specific examples of solutions. Ultimately, only by understanding the political nature of the attacks… can we choose effective political ways to counter them….”

How does the Fight about Critical Race Theory Fit into the Big Picture?

The National Education Policy Center’s new brief additionally presents the history of politically motivated attacks on the honest acknowledgment of racism in public school social studies classrooms—during the McCarthy era, during the Civil Rights Movement, as a reaction during the Reagan era to educational and political liberalism in the 1960s, and after the tragic death of George Floyd last year. The new brief explains the NY Times Magazine articles called The 1619 Project and the backlash led by President Donald Trump to prevent students from reading these articles as part of high school history and government classes.

It is important to remember that the attacks on teaching about race and racism in public schools are motivated more by politics  than they are by educational concerns.  In Let Then Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, a book published in the summer of 2020 as President Donald Trump was mounting his campaign for reelection, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson explain: “As the GOP embraced plutocratic practices, it pioneered a set of electoral appeals that were increasingly strident, alarmist, and racially charged.” (Let Them Eat Tweets, p. 4) “What Republicans learned as they refined their strategies for reaching… voters is that issues, whether economic or social, are much less powerful than identities. Issue positions can inform identities, but it is identities—perceptions of shared allegiance and shared threat—that really mobilize.” (Let Then Eat Tweets, p. 117)

But the implications for our children are not only political; they are educational.  In June, to confront today’s right-wing attack on the accurate teaching of American history, 135 prominent academic and educational organizations released a Joint Statement on Legislative Efforts to Restrict Education about Racism and American History : “(T)hese bills risk infringing on the right of faculty to teach and of students to learn. The clear goal of these efforts is to suppress teaching and learning about the role of racism in the history of the United States. Purportedly, any examination of racism in this country’s classrooms might cause some students ‘discomfort’ because it is an uncomfortable and complicated subject. But the ideal of informed citizenship necessitates an educated public.  Educators must provide an accurate view of the past in order to better prepare students for community participation and robust civic engagement. Suppressing or watering down discussion of ‘divisive concepts’ in educational institutions deprives students of opportunities to discuss and foster solutions to social division and injustice. Legislation cannot erase ‘concepts’ or history; it can, however, diminish educators’ ability to help students address facts in an honest and open environment capable of nourishing intellectual exploration… Knowledge of the past exists to serve the needs of the living. In the current context this includes an honest reckoning with all aspects of that past. Americans of all ages deserve nothing less than a free and open exchange about history and the forces that shape our world today.”

The Same People Now Trying to Undermine Democratic Elections Have Been Trying for 30 Years to Privatize Public Schools

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The players are the very same. For decades they’ve been coming for our public schools. Now they are coming for the democratic process itself by trying to undermine fair elections.

Jane Mayer’s article in the July 9, 2021 New Yorker, The Big Money Behind the Big Lie, begins: “Trump’s attacks on democracy are being promoted by rich conservatives determined to win at all costs.” Mayer uncovers the players behind the Arizona Senate’s demand for an audit of the 2020 election results in Maricopa County. They include the very same people who have worked systematically over the past 30 years to privatize and undermine our American system of public education.

On the significance of this year’s election audit in Phoenix—an election audit conducted by a questionable private contractor—Mayer quotes Ralph Neas, who formerly led the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and later People for the American Way: “The Maricopa County audit exposes exactly what the Big Lie is all about. If they come up with an analysis that discredits the 2020 election results in Arizona, it will be replicated in other states furthering more chaos. That will enable new legislation. Millions of Americans could be disenfranchised….”

Mayer continues: “Although the Arizona audit may appear to be the product of local extremists, it has been fed by sophisticated, well-funded national organizations whose boards of directors include some of the country’s wealthiest and highest-profile conservatives. Dark-money organizations, sustained by undisclosed donors, have relentlessly promoted the myth that American elections are rife with fraud., and… they have drafted, supported, and in some cases taken credit for state laws that make it harder to vote.”

Mayer names some of the organizations involved in the attack on the integrity of last year’s election: the Heritage Foundation; the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—a corporate funded nonprofit that generates model laws for state legislatures; the Federalist Society; the Judicial Education Project, “which has rebranded itself as the Honest Election Project”; and FreedomWorks. Here is what all these groups have in common: “They have all received funding from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. Based in Milwaukee, the private, tax-exempt organization has become an extraordinary force in persuading mainstream Republicans to support radical challenges to election rules…. With an endowment of some eight hundred and fifty million dollars, the foundation funds a network of groups that have been stoking fear about election fraud, in some cases for years.”

What is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and where might we have heard of these people before? Mayer provides some history: “The Bradley Foundation remains small in comparison with such liberal behemoths as the Ford Foundation, but it has become singularly preoccupied with wielding national political influence. It has funded conservative projects ranging from school-choice initiatives to the controversial scholarship of Charles Murray, the co-author of the 1994 book, The Bell Curve.”

A long time ago, in the early 1990s, the Bradley Foundation was a major force behind the first school vouchers in the United States—in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Bradley Foundation funded the state’s defense against a legal challenge to the program and also paid for mounting an enormous public relations campaign behind school vouchers. In 2003, People for the American Way explored the sudden appearance of a new advocacy group, the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO): “BAEO seemed to come out of nowhere with a series of compelling television ads featuring African-American parents talking about the importance of school choice… BAEO bills itself as a coalition of up-and-coming leaders working within the African American community.  But a closer look shows that BAEO has been bankrolled by a small number of right-wing foundations… It is not surprising that BAEO is headquartered in Milwaukee. Wisconsin has been the linchpin of the voucher movement for over a decade and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation has been at the center of the action…  The Bradley Foundation played a key role when the Milwaukee voucher program came under legal challenge for violating the separation of church and state… Bradley gave the state of Wisconsin $350,000 to pay for the work that Kenneth Starr… and his firm… did to defend the voucher program before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.”

In a 2017 investigation for Madison Wisconsin’s Cap Times, Mary Bottari comments on the outrageous irony that the Bradley Foundation, despite its history of giving to far-right political causes, continues to be designated by the IRS as a charitable nonprofit: “The Bradley Foundation, organized as a tax-exempt ‘charitable’ foundation under 501(c)(3) of the tax code, appears to be pursuing a highly partisan game plan: funding an ‘infrastructure’ on the right that benefits the Republican Party, while at the same time attempting to crush supporters of the Democratic Party.”

The American Legislative Exchange Council is another of the major players Jane Mayer identifies behind today’s outrageous attack on the authenticity of the 2020 election. The Center for Media and Democracy lists ALEC as a regular and significant recipient of operating grants from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.

Common Cause has had a long running whistle-blower complaint lodged against ALEC because, while it is also identified for tax purposes by the IRS as a “charitable” nonprofit, ALEC is a bill mill with a long history of churning out model school voucher bills along with other far-right projects. ALEC’s Education Task Force regularly drafts and circulates model school privatization bills, which are written as templates to be introduced in any state legislature after state-specific details are inserted.

The Center for Media and Democracy traces ALEC’s direct involvement in 1990 with the birth of the Milwaukee school voucher program: “Decades ago, ALEC targeted Wisconsin as a test case for their agenda. Tommy Thompson, who served as a state legislator from 1966-1987 and then as governor for a record 14 years, was an early ALEC member and supporter… It is now apparent that Thompson was the enthusiastic frontman for a slew of ALEC ideas and legislation — most famously ‘Welfare to Work’ and ‘School Choice.’ In 1990, Milwaukee’s school voucher program for low-income children was the first in the nation, the camel’s nose under the tent for a long-term agenda with the ultimate goal being the privatization of public schools.”

In this week’s New Yorker piece, Jane Mayer mentions another player in this year’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election through the right-wing Maricopa County election audit: Shawnna Bolick.  Bolick is currently an Arizona state representative from Phoenix; she is also running for Arizona secretary of state.  Although Mayor doesn’t trace this history, Shawnna Bolick has family ties to the far-right promotion of school vouchers back in the 1990s.

Mayer leaves out the story of Shawnna Bolick’s husband, Clint Bolick.  In May of 2000, PBS Frontline produced a special on The Battle Over School Choice, which featured an interview with Clint Bolick, along with this introduction: “Bolick is a co-founder and Director of Litigation for the Washington D.C.-based Institute for Justice, begun in 1991 as the ‘nation’s only libertarian public interest law firm’ and as an alternative to the American Civil Liberties Union. The Institute for Justice represents parents and children in various legal cases across the country in support of school choice, including the Cleveland, Ohio lawsuit regarding a publicly funded scholarship program.”

In the interview, Clint Bolick explains: “We have been involved in the school choice battle since we opened our doors in 1991…. The very first court battle was in the spring of 1990, when the first school choice program was passed in Milwaukee. It was a tiny program that evoked a tremendous response from the educational bureaucracy, in the form of a lawsuit and an onslaught of regulations. We represented the parents and children defending the program and challenging the regulations.  And on the first day of school in the year 1990, we were successful.”

In that interview in 2000, Clint Bolick speculated that a case to overturn the “Cleveland Scholarship” voucher program would rise to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the spring of 2002, Bolick served as chief litigator in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, defending Ohio’s right to spend tax dollars for tuition vouchers to be used in private schools that include religious education. He argued that, “as long as a program gives parents the choice of where to send their kids and does not create any sort of financial incentive for them to do so,” vouchers do not violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.  In June of 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of allowing the Cleveland Scholarship Plan to proceed.

Now in 2021, Shawnna Bolick, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation—along with many of the groups who have been recipients of Bradley Foundation grants—are working to undermine the democratic process itself by attacking what courts have already declared  to be a fair election in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Jane Mayor describes the troubling role of dark money: “It might seem improbable that a low-profile family foundation in Wisconsin has assumed a central role in current struggles over American democracy. But the modern conservative movement has depended on leveraging the fortunes of wealthy reactionaries.”

In his history of the American battle over protecting the right to public education, Schoolhouse Burning, Derek Black describes the fall of Reconstruction after 1876 as the period when states across the former Confederacy attacked the two institutions essential for democracy:  “The new constitutional agenda was two-pronged: disenfranchise black voters and segregate and underfund public schools.” (p. 139)  For the past three decades, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, ALEC, The Institute for Justice and their allies have been pursuing a similar attack on the same two institutions—the right to vote and the public schools that prepare children to become citizens—which the Founders understand as an essential foundation for democracy.

Philanthropic Dollars Are Funding the Effort to Distract Legislatures and School Boards with a Debate about Critical Race Theory

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The concept of Critical Race Theory—that racism throughout U.S. history has been structural and institutional and not merely a matter of personal prejudice—is theoretical and has been taught in colleges, graduate schools and law schools but rarely in the public schools. (See here and here.) More basic educational lessons in K-12 public schools to help students and educators learn about racism and be more sensitive to the needs and history of people from the different cultures who make up our society are neither frightening nor threatening.

The recent brouhaha, which alleges something dangerous about Critical Race Theory and racial sensitivity training, would appear just to have emerged on Fox News and social media. But if that’s true, how is it that more than half the state legislatures are debating legislation or have passed laws to prohibit discussions in public school social studies classes of sensitive subjects that might make students feel uncomfortable or guilty?  And why, last week, did 135 national academic and professional organizations feel compelled to write a letter declaring “our firm opposition to a spate of legislative proposals being introduced across the country that target academic lessons, presentations, and discussions of racism and related issues in American history in schools, colleges and universities.”?

Earlier this week, Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria of Popular Information reported: “This didn’t happen on its own. Rather, there is a constellation of non-profit groups and media outlets that are systematically injecting Critical Race Theory (CRT) into our politics. In 2020, most people had never heard of CRT.  In 2021, a chorus of voices on the right insists it is an existential threat to the country. A Popular Information investigation reveals that many of the entities behind the CRT panic share a common funding source: The Thomas W. Smith Foundation.  The Thomas W. Smith Foundation has no website and its namesake founder keeps a low public profile.”

Legum and Zekeria explain: “Between 2017 and 2019, the Thomas W. Smith Foundation has granted at least $12.75 million to organizations that publicly attack Critical Race Theory… The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, has recently been at the forefront of the crusade against CRT.  It is also the top recipient of cash from The Thomas W. Smith Foundation.” The Manhattan Institute received $4.32 million from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation between 2017-2019.  We learn that Christopher Rufo, who appeared seemingly from nowhere on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show and openly claimed he has been working to distort and make toxic an academic theory about structural and institutional racism by conflating any number of topics into what he called “a new bucket called critical race theory,” isn’t merely a documentary film maker, as has been reported.  He is a well-paid fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

From Legum and Zekeria we learn: “The right-wing Heritage Foundation, which previously employed Rufo, also receives substantial support from Thomas W. Smith Foundation… In June 2021, the executive director of the Heritage Foundation told Politico that fighting ‘critical race theory’ is one of the top two issues the group is working on alongside efforts to tighten voting laws.'”  Between 2017 and 2019, the Heritage Foundation received $525,000 from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation.

The list of organizations receiving funding from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation is lengthy: the American Enterprise Institute, the Alexander Hamilton Institute, the American Ideas Institute, the Center for American Greatness, the Claremont Institute, the Daily Caller Foundation, The Federalist, Heterodox Academy, the Independent Women’s Forum, Judicial Watch, Turning Point, The National Review, PragerU, The Real Clear Foundation, The Texas Public Policy Foundation, The American Spectator, the Federalist Society, and Young America’s Foundation.

Two other significant recipients must be named because of their reach into public policy. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) drafts model laws to be copied and adapted into legislation by any state legislature. And the State Policy Network (SPN) works with ALEC; its mission is to work actively through its network of politically conservative state policy think tanks to promote coordinated legislation across the 50 state legislatures. Legum and Zekeria report: “The American Legislative Exchange Council… has been hosting webinars to help lawmakers draft legislation banning Critical Race Theory (and) has received at least $425,000 from the Thomas W. Smith Foundation since 2017.  In December 2020, ALEC hosted a workshop in partnership with the Heritage Foundation on ‘Reclaiming Education and the American Dream… Against Critical Race Theory’s Onslaught.'” With so many of nation’s state legislatures and state boards of education considering similar bills and resolutions to ban public school discussion of so-called “threatening” topics, ALEC’s and SPN’s fingerprints are almost inevitable.

Wealthy philanthropists now use their so-called charitable foundations to shape public policy. Most of us are aware that today, philanthropy is not merely investing in charitable grants to needy causes in response to applicants’ requests for support. The seemingly sudden emergence of the idea that something called “Critical Race Theory” has become a crisis in our public schools is merely the latest example of philanthropic dollars spreading ideology.

As a response, we need to consider the words of the leaders of 135 academic and professional organizations who declared last week: “(T)he ideal of informed citizenship necessitates an educated public. Educators must provide an accurate view of the past in order to better prepare students for community participation and robust civic engagement. Suppressing or watering down discussion of ‘divisive concepts’ in educational institutions deprives students of opportunities to discuss and foster solutions to social division and injustice. Legislation cannot erase ‘concepts’ or history; it can, however, diminish educators’ ability to help students address facts in an honest and open environment capable of nourishing intellectual exploration.”

What Is at Stake when ALEC, the State Policy Network, The Buckeye Institute and EdChoice Lobby for Vouchers?

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As we begin 2021, there has been troubling coverage about new voucher programs popping up in state legislatures. This is despite that Betsy DeVos is gone and that President Joseph Biden is a strong supporter of the institution of public schools. And in states like Indiana, and Ohio, where privatized school vouchers have been in place for decades, we can also watch pressure for their expansion.

Earlier this week, Bill Phillis, Ohio’s longest and best informed proponent of public schools and the executive director of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, sent around a troubling article from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette describing a bill being considered by the Indiana House Education Committee for the radical expansion of an already enormous publicly funded private school tuition voucher program in Indiana, Ohio’s neighbor:

“The proposed bill expands the $172 million a year voucher program to allow a family of four earning as much as $145,000 a year to qualify for vouchers. Median household income in Indiana is about $60,000 a year. The bill also eliminates income limits on the size of the voucher awards. Currently, a family of four earning up to $48,000 a year is limited to a voucher worth 90% of per-student state funding for the school corporation in which the family resides. At $60,000 a year in household income, the voucher drops to 70%. Four-person families earning up to $96,000 a year qualify for 50% of per-student funding. But HB 1005 drops the income tiers even as it raises income eligibility. A family of four earning up to $109,000 would qualify for a 90% voucher in 2021-22. In 2022-23, eligibility rises to $145,000 a year for a 90% voucher. That translates to millions of tax dollars to parents who do not choose public schools but can afford tuition for their children.”

The goal of voucher proponents in Indiana is clearly similar to Ohio State Senate President Matt Huffman’s dogged purpose in Ohio. In late November, Huffman pushed through without even a committee hearing a revamp of his primary project: expanding voucher accessibility to an ever increasing number of students across our state. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is always said to be the driver of voucher promotion nationwide.  In 2017, ALEC and another national far-right organization FreedomWorks made Matt Huffman their legislator of the week.

A nationwide right-wing bill mill, ALEC creates model bills, including bills for tax credit vouchers and education savings account vouchers, and sends its model bills into the 50 statehouses with the intention that at least in some places they will be enacted into state law. FreedomWorks defines itself: “FreedomWorks exists to build, educate, and mobilize the largest network of activists advocating the principles of smaller government, lower taxes, free markets, personal liberty and the rule of law.”

But ALEC and FreedomWorks are not the primary advocates testifying in in state legislatures for the launch of school vouchers—or in states like Indiana and Ohio, the expansion of school vouchers. In Indiana, the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for EdChoice, now formally named EdChoice , describes its purpose: “EdChoice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. Our team is driven by the shared mission to advance a K–12 education system where all families are free to choose a learning environment that works best for their children.” This is doubletalk for the idea of substituting universal school choice at public expense for a system of public schools.

In Ohio, aligned in purpose with EdChoice, is the Buckeye Institute, a nonprofit that actively and regularly floods the statehouse with lobbyists. In the area of education, the Buckeye Institute says its purpose is, “Giving all children the best education through school choice and returning local control to every community.”  And it announces a special priority: “Support education savings accounts for parents to personalize their children’s learning experience and save for college.”

EdChoice and the Buckeye Institute are both members of the State Policy Network (SPN), which SourceWatch describes as, “a web of right-wing ‘think tanks’ and tax-exempt organizations in 50 states (see this interactive map), Washington, D.C., Canada, and the United Kingdom. As of August 2020, SPN’s membership totals 162. Today’s SPN is the tip of the spear of (a) far-right, nationally funded policy agenda in the states that undergirds extremists in the Republican Party… SPN groups operate as the policy, communications, and litigation arm of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), giving the cookie-cutter ALEC agenda a sheen of academic legitimacy and state-based support.”

Where does the money behind this State Policy Network of organizations come from?  In a major 2013 investigation of the State Policy Network, SourceWatch reported that it is hard to know, because funding mostly flows through DonorsTrust and the Donors Capital Fund, dark money sources that do not name individual donors: “The largest known funder behind SPN and its member think tanks are two closely related funds—DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund… They are what are called ‘donor-advised funds,’ which means that the fund creates separate accounts for individual donors, and the donors then recommend disbursements from the accounts to different nonprofits. It cloaks the identity of the original mystery donors or makes it impossible to connect donors with recipients because the funds are then distributed in the name of DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.”

SourceWatch has identified some major contributors in addition to DonorsTrust to the State Policy Network and its so-called “think tanks,” including the Walton Family Foundation: $1,725,000 (2014-2019); the Bradley Foundation: $1,570,000 (2014-2019); and the Sarah Scaife Foundation: $840,000 (2016-2018).

Unfortunately knowing about pro-voucher organizations and even some of the groups which are funding all this activity does not make it any easier to advocate against this kind of massive influence peddling for vouchers and tax credit vouchers and education savings account vouchers across our state legislatures. In an important new book, Schoolhouse Burning, constitutional law professor Derek Black explores the serious challenge posed by dark money and groups like ALEC, the State Policy Network, Ohio’s Buckeye Institute, and Indiana’s EdChoice. Derek Black believes the threat is greatest in the nation’s most vulnerable communities serving Black, Brown, and poor children:

“(T)he interests of those pulling the political and financial levers behind the scenes to expand charters and vouchers do not align with disadvantaged communities. Their goal, unlike that of minority communities, is not to ensure that each and every child, regardless of wealth, race, or religion, receives an equal and adequate educational opportunity. The powerful interests behind the scenes want a much different system of government than the one our founders put in our state and federal constitutions. Undermining public education is a big part of making that happen. Education, they say, is ‘the lowest hanging fruit for policy change in the United States today.’ In their minds, the scales of justice should tip away from mass democracy and the common good toward individualism and private property. That means less taxes, less government, less public education. While couched as more liberty, what they really mean is that government should let the chips fall where they may. It isn’t government’s job to ensure equal participation in democracy.”  (Schoolhouse Burning, p. 19)

Derek Black believes those of us who are committed to public education must not merely be persistent in opposing all kinds of school privatization. We must also be prepared clearly to articulate why public schools are so important: “Public education represents a commitment to a nation in which a day laborer’s son can go to college, own a business, maybe even become president. It represents a nation in which every person has a stake in setting the rules by which society will govern itself, where the waitress’s children learn alongside of and break bread with the senator’s and the CEOs children. Public education represents a nation where people from many different countries, religions, and ethnic backgrounds come together as one for a common purpose around common values. We know that the idea has never been fully true in our schools, but we need to believe in that idea… The pursuit of that idea, both in fact and in mind, has long set us apart from the world….” (Schoolhouse Burning, p 250)

Myths and Hype Fueled Charter School Expansion: Here Are 8 Essential Facts

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If you value the role of public schools—locally governed, publicly owned and operated—whose mission is to serve the needs and protect the rights of every child, you can be more supportive if you know the facts about charter schools. The public schools across the United States enroll 50 million students, 90 percent.  Charter schools suck money out of state budgets and public school districts while they enroll only 6 percent of American students. We all need to be actively refuting the myths and calling politicians on their errors when they betray their ignorance about the problems posed by the privatization of public education.

Here are eight facts to keep in mind:

  1. While their promoters try to brand them as “public charter schools,” charter schools are a form of school privatization. Charter schools are private contractors whose expenses are paid with tax dollars. Their boards operate privately—very often without transparency.
  2. For-profit charter schools are permitted in only two states—Arizona and Wisconsin. In the 43 other states whose laws permit charter schools, the schools must be nonprofits.
  3. Nonprofit charter schools are increasingly operated—and often highly controlled—by for-profit Charter Management Organizations (CMOs).  Sometimes, in something called a sweeps contract, a nonprofit turns over 90 percent or more of its operating dollars to the for-profit management company it has hired to run the school—meaning that the for-profit essentially runs the school.  But that school is technically a nonprofit. Eighty percent of Michigan’s charter schools are operated by for-profit CMOs.
  4. Charter schools are established in state law in 45 states and the District of Columbia. (West Virginia, the 45th state, just passed charter school enabling legislation in June, 2019.)  There are no federal laws that set up or regulate charter schools.
  5. Across the states, charter school fraud and corruption has run rampant due to weak regulation by state legislatures.
  6. Charter schools and their supporters and lobbyists have used their power to promote charter schools across the state legislatures. Groups like the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), ExcelinEd (Jeb Bush’s group), and the American Federation for Children (Betsy DeVos’s group) have lobbied for charter school expansion, and deregulation. Many state legislatures have passed “model” bills which were written and distributed by ALEC’s Education Committee to members of state legislatures who are also members of ALEC.
  7. No state has passed additional taxes to fund charter schools.  When states create charter schools, children who leave public schools to enroll in charters carry away state dollars and essential funding from the public school districts where the children were previously enrolled (see here and here). Public school districts are unable to compensate fully for the loss the public dollars that used to pay for public school services but have now been redirected to a privatized sector.
  8. Since it was begun in 1994, the federal Charter Schools Program has served as a sort of venture capital fund with grants to states to fuel the startup and expansion of the charter school sector. More than $1 billion has been wasted on charter schools which never opened or eventually shut down.  Proponents of the program, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have claimed this waste of tax dollars is acceptable because the money fueled educational innovation and entrepreneurship—even if there was a high rate of failure.

Several of the Democratic candidates for President of the United States have been playing to public school supporters by opposing for-profit charter schools. For the American Prospect, Rachel M. Cohen reports that by opposing for-profit charters, several of the candidates seem to be distancing themselves from charter schools; she adds that two or three have even supported the idea, endorsed by the NAACP, of a moratorium on new charter schools until their impact has been carefully assessed. Cohen adds that candidates seem to be noticing public opinion polls that report “dwindling support among white Democratic voters” for charter schools.

Candidates ought to be calculating their positions based on the facts, however, not on shifts in political opinion.  If you know the 8 essential facts about charter schools described in this post, you will wonder:

  • How can so many of the candidates be so ignorant about the relative absence of for-profit charter schools?
  • Do these politicians not know that the for-profit Charter Management Organizations (CMOs), not the charter schools themselves, are sucking profits from the tax dollars allocated for the nonprofit charter schools they manage?
  • How can so many candidates seem unaware of the importance of our nation’s world class system of public education and poorly informed about the ways the public schools are threatened by the expansion of charters?
  • Are candidates trying to have it both ways—by being for and against charter schools at the same time?
  • Why do so many of the candidates not care enough to become informed about the needs of public schools and the challenges school privatization poses for public school districts?

Maybe the level of misunderstanding or the amount of disinterest is because school privatization, like school funding, is primarily a state-by-state issue.  But there is at least one area in which the matter of charter schools ought to be of urgent interest to every member of Congress and every Democratic candidate for President: the demonstrated catastrophe of the federal Charter Schools Program.  (See fact #8.)

The following question ought to be asked at every candidates’ debate or forum or town hall or coffee with a Democratic candidate for President:

The federal government—through the federal Charter Schools Program—has been subsidizing the startup and expansion of charter schools with grants to states. But the Network for Public Education and even the Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General have criticized this program due to the utter absence of oversight. More than $1 billion has been invested through this program in schools that never opened or that ultimately shut down. Will you pledge to terminate the federal Charter Schools Program program?

Tony Evers, Inaugurated as Wisconsin Governor, Faces a Divided State But Has Backing from Strong Public Education Network

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In his fine book on the political ramifications of the 2010 Red-wave state elections, The One Percent Solution, Gordon Lafer describes state politics marked by big money and the impact of the Tea Party: “In January 2011, legislatures across the country took office under a unique set of circumstances.  In many states, new majorities rode to power on the energy of the Tea Party ‘wave’ election and the corporate-backed RedMap campaign.  Critically, this new territory included a string of states, running across the upper Midwest from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, that had traditionally constituted labor strongholds…. In addition, this was the first class of legislators elected under post-Citizens United campaign finance rules, and the sudden influence of unlimited money in politics was felt across the country… Wisconsin’s was the most notorious legislation adopted during this period… Wisconsin’s ‘Budget Repair Bill’ (Act 10) largely eliminated collective bargaining rights for the state’s 175,000 public employees…  (Act 10) marked a singular triumph for the ALEC network.  Not only did the bill embrace principles laid out in ALEC model legislation, but its passage was made possible by an extensive corporate investment in local politics. (Governor Scott) Walker himself is an alumnus of ALEC, and from 2008 to 2012 he received over $400,000 in campaign contributions from ALEC-member companies. In addition, forty-nine members of the 2011 Wisconsin legislature were ALEC members….” (The One Percent Solution, pp. 44-49)

Yesterday, January 7, 2019, Tony Evers, a Democrat, was inaugurated to replace Walker as Wisconsin’s  governor, but both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature remain Republican—and ALEC-dominated.

Some are encouraged by the new governor’s cabinet picks.  On Sunday, reporters for the Wisconsin State Journal called Evers’ cabinet picks pragmatic: “Gov.-elect Tony Evers’ Cabinet roster points to a pragmatic approach aimed more at building consensus and managing agencies than fighting ideological battles or transforming how agencies operate, according to both Republican and Democratic observers.” Most cabinet appointments must be approved by the state senate, so we’ll wait to see whether Evers’ choices are acceptable to a highly ideological legislature.

Before his election as Governor, Evers was Wisconsin’s superintendent of public instruction; as a new governor he is permitted by Wisconsin law to choose his own replacement without required senate confirmation.  He has announced he will appoint Carolyn Stanford Taylor, who has been serving since 2001 as an assistant state superintendent. Public school supporters are encouraged by his choice.  Stanford Taylor was formerly a school principal at two elementary schools and a middle school in Madison, where at one time she was president of the local teachers union. The Wisconsin State Journal reports that when Evers named Stanford Taylor, he presented her as “a thoughtful leader… She is known and respected throughout the education community for her commitment to equity and her work to help all students reach academic success.” The Wisconsin State Journal’s report also quotes the Republican chairman of the Senate Education Committee, “who praised the pick. ‘I think she’ll do a great job as superintendent.'”

As he left office, Scott Walker signed lame duck bills designed to curtail Evers’ power after he is in office. Many have predicted infighting and gridlock. But so far Evers has been upbeat and proactive. As the departing, lame-duck legislature debated bills to curb his power, Evers and his staff in the state superintendent’s office traveled across the state for a series of People’s Budget Listening Sessions to focus citizens on what must be his first priority in office—the next state budget. The press blurb Evers released after the first listening session, which attracted 230 people, begins this way: “Green Bay — Governor-elect Tony Evers, Lt. Governor-elect Mandela Barnes, and transition policy staff heard from Fox Valley residents who attended the first “Building the People’s Budget” event at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.  Governor-elect Evers and his team are focused on building a budget that reflects the values and priorities of the residents of Wisconsin…. Transportation, public education, healthcare, and jobs were among the highest priority issues for attendees in Green Bay.”

Evers has already announced one budget priority. Wisconsin Public Radio reports: “Democratic Gov.-elect Tony Evers… wants Wisconsin property tax bills to show how much people are paying to support private voucher schools. The plan is one of many Evers will introduce as part of his first state budget, which will be the first proposed by a democratic governor in Wisconsin in eight years… ‘At some point in time as a state, we have to figure out whether we can afford two or three separate allocations of public schools,’ Evers said in an interview Wednesday. ‘People in Wisconsin don’t know how much school districts are losing because of vouchers and how much is being deducted from their aid. They need to know that so that we can as a state have a good discussion about what’s involved with the voucher program.'”

One thing Tony Evers can count on—even in his divided state where gridlock is anticipated: support from a tightly organized statewide network of public education advocates. The Wisconsin Public Education Network and its executive director Heather DuBois Bournane regularly update hundreds of public school activists and even encourage a network of volunteers to submit columns to their local newspapers.

In a recent column published in the Appleton Post Crescent, Jane Parish Yang, James Bowman, and Nancy Jones explain the importance of helping citizens understand Evers’ priority issue—the financial loss experienced by public school districts as money is redirected to Wisconsin’s statewide private school tuition voucher program: “The Wisconsin Parental Choice Program, the statewide voucher program is one of three privatization programs in Wisconsin…  The WPCP was added to the budget in 2013 with no public hearings…  As more people seek the voucher payment, costs have increased statewide—from $3.2 million in 2013 to an estimated $54.6 million in 2018-19 for a total of $139.5 million during that time period… A close look at the ‘choice’ program reveals that most parents in the WPCP do not exercise choice. They simply seek a payment from the state for their child’s private school tuition. Of the students currently receiving a voucher, 77 percent attended private school last year.  Only a minority transferred from a public school. Consider the effect of the WPCP on the residents of one community, the Fox Cities. For the current year, 552 vouchers were issued to residents of the community’s six school districts… The cost is substantial: six years of vouchers in the Fox Cities have cost local taxpayers $13,379,651.”

The damage to Wisconsin public education during Scott Walker’s tenure has been devastating.  It will be fascinating to watch Evers, who knows education from his years as state superintendent, try to leverage the power of the governor’s office behind improving public schools—with the backing of the massive and organized Wisconsin Public Education Network.