• Athletics
  • Big Ed
  • Ed Tech
  • Educators
  • Elections
  • Federal Policy
  • Parents
  • Students
  • The Testing Industry

K-12 News Network's The Wire

K-12 News Network: People-Powered Public Education News

  • Budgets
  • Charter Schools
  • Federal Policy
  • School Districts
  • State Education Law
  • School Boards
You are here: Home / Big Ed / Vouchers Create a Split Between "Ed Reform" Conservatives: Accountability Bean-Counters and the Religious Right

Vouchers Create a Split Between "Ed Reform" Conservatives: Accountability Bean-Counters and the Religious Right

July 9, 2012 by K12NN Site Admin

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

The New Republic has an interesting analysis of Louisiana’s experiment in privatization of public schools: Ed Kilgore argues in “How the GOP’s New Education Policy Embraces the Market and Abandons Objective Standards” that vouchers pander to parents as the ultimate source of “accountability.” But this emphasis on parents’ subjective evaluation of a school’s worth (private = religious = my religion = better) flies in the face of technocratic, data-driven assessments that use student standardized test scores as the basis of “stack ranking” teachers and deeming schools failures.

Kilgore says:

Now it may be objected that it’s possible to construct a voucher system less cavalier about school quality than Louisiana’s, and that a Romney Administration Department of Education would do a better job of “vetting” schools. But the conflict between no-strings voucher systems and those based on objective standards is not one of competence, but of philosophy. And moreover, even if a Republican Congress and White House (or states following their lead) were willing to partially abandon the parental-market-place principle and begin insisting on standards for curriculum and instruction, it would run smack into another ideological totem: The growing resistance of conservative religious institutions to any conditions for the use of public funds that might tread upon their “freedom,” however they choose to define it.

In reality, if creeping privatization looks like taxpayer funding for semi-private charters or taxpayer subsidies for religious and wholly private schools, what’s the difference if both de-populate and de-fund public schools? Where Kilgore errs is his view of “public charter schools” as upholding “objectivity” and “accountability” of student performance; that’s in keeping with a center-right faith in technocracy. Corporate charter chains certainly fail in many respects to demonstrate accountability to the public when it comes to financial operations or school governance.

Charter schools de-fund public school districts through financial re-engineering of per-pupil funding and the appearance of “choice”; religious schools de-fund public school districts through emotional appeals to the personal religious allegiances of parents. What on earth will multi-billion dollar testing companies do if their cash cow, public schools standards compliance and remediation, disappears?

This could be viewed as a split in the conservative attempts to privatize schools and a weakness, or a clever way to differentiate the overall, unifying strategy of dismantling public education to two very distinct audiences and thus a strength of “ed reformers.”

Weaknesses or strengths, what both approaches share is the fundamental desire to make excellent public schools scarce — if completely inaccessible — by “free marketing” it out of existence.

Supporters of public education must reject privatization attempts, or we’ll end up with expensive schooling for only an exclusive few and redirection of taxpayer dollars intended for public school spending instead routed into the pockets of private companies — and not classrooms where kids are. A free, high-quality public education is what made this country great. We should continue expanding this so it’s a reality for every child.

Facebooktwitterlinkedinrssyoutube

Filed Under: Big Ed, Elections, New Orleans, State Education Law, The Testing Industry Tagged With: #louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal, vouchers

About K12NN Site Admin

I'm Cynthia Liu, Owner/Founder of K12 News Network. I'm the proud product of public schools through post-grad, the mom of a child in public schools, and the daughter of two teachers. Connect with me professionally on LinkedIn.

Sign up for our newsletter

* indicates required
Email Format

Buy a hybrid Facebook+ website today!

Federal Policy

Quick Education Voter’s Guide to the California CD34 Race, April 4, 2017

There are twenty-three candidates running to fill former Congressman Xavier Bacerra’s seat in Congressional District 34 in Southern California. (Bacerra is currently the state’s Attorney General, replacing Kamala Harris, who, after November 8, 2016, became our US Senator.) Election Day is Tuesday, April 4, 2017, 7:00 am to 8:00 pm. You can find your polling […]

Betsy DeVos, #NOTMYSDOE

Take the pledge to #resist and fight for public schools as a public good TODAY. DeVos had to have the assistance of Vice President Mike Pence’s unprecedented tie-breaking vote in order to win her confirmation. Two GOP Senators voted against, all Democratic Senators voted against. Yet all the other GOP Senators who received campaign donations […]

Next #DemDebate MUST Include K-12 Education Policy

The next #DemDebate is scheduled for the important primary state of Iowa on November 14, 2015. It’ll be broadcast by CBS in partnership with the Des Moines Register. Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig is leading the call for the families of 50 million students K-12 across the nation and the communities they live in to have […]

More Posts from this Category

K12NN on Blog Talk Radio

Online Politics Progressive Radio at Blog Talk Radio with MOMocrats on BlogTalkRadio

Categories

July 2012
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Jun   Aug »

Copyright © 2022 · The Wire Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in