School choice proposals rarely go before voters – and typically fail when they do

  Arizona lawmakers decided in late 2022 that the state will pay tuition, related education expenses, or both for children at any school parents select, including private and religious schools.

  It’s the latest step in an effort to provide public funds for private schools that in Arizona began in 2011. And that step was taken along what I have discovered to be a familiar route.

Why do libertarians support school vouchers?

  For the life of me, I simply cannot understand why some libertarians still support school vouchers. Libertarianism, after all, is about achieving a free society. What do school vouchers have to do with freedom? They are the very antithesis of freedom.

A genuinely free society necessarily entails getting government out of education entirely. That includes ridding our nation of the federal Department of Education. Most libertarians know that and advocate it.

DeVos’ formula for success: Trash public schools and push privatization

  When U.S Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos discussed the results from the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, she described them as “devastating” and part of a worsening crisis in education.

  The results showed a slight decline in reading scores and a flattening in math scores.

  She noted that two out of three of the nation’s children aren’t proficient in reading. She also decried as ineffective the US$1 trillion in federal spending on education over the past 40 years, saying it has done nothing to stop the widening gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students.

School voucher proponents love socialism too

  As the debate over socialism between President Trump and his potential Democratic presidential opponents heats up, we shouldn’t forget a socialist program that Trump and other conservatives have come to love — the school voucher program.

  Like other welfare-state programs, vouchers are based on the socialist concept of using the force of government to take money from one group of people and using it to pay for the education of another group of people. The irony is that conservatives justify their socialist program by saying that it is being used to save children from the disastrous consequences of another socialist program, public schooling.

Craig Ford: The future of education is at stake on Election Day

  Do you believe money should be taken out of our local public schools so that kids in Birmingham, Montgomery and other parts of the state can go to a private school?

  That is what’s at stake when you go to vote in two weeks.

  In 2013, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill called the “Accountability Act.” The idea behind it was that money that would otherwise go to our public schools would instead be used to fund private school scholarships for kids who attend “failing schools.”

Families first, taxpayers last

  Milton Friedman may have put families first, but he put taxpayers last.

  Friedman (1912–2006) was one of the most influential free-market economists of the twentieth century. After receiving his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University, he worked for the federal government and then taught economics at the University of Chicago for thirty years. In 1976, he received the Nobel Prize in Economics “for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history, and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy.”

The Prince-DeVos plan to privatize American institutions

  Despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C., it often seems like he is creating one. Take Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide—now known as Academi—and his sister, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who both are leading efforts to privatize American institutions.

  Recently, Prince, the current chair of Frontier Services Group, took center stage in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections. It appears that Prince served as then-President-elect Trump’s surrogate to establish a back channel to connect Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ulrich Boser: The value of guardrails in education

  The real estate crash of September 2008 provided a powerful lesson about the nature of government oversight. After federal regulators failed to rigorously manage the real estate industry, a pool of bad loans caused a housing bubble that nearly destroyed the world economy.

  While schools are much different than houses, education reformers should take note of the value of government oversight because the core lesson remains the same. Markets function better when government plays a strong role, and education policymakers should help to inform consumer decisions and police bad actors.

Betsy DeVos: Secretary of Discrimination?

  The opportunity to learn is a fundamental American value, which no student should ever be denied because of discrimination or harassment. But just months into her tenure, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is sending mixed messages about her commitment to protect young people from discrimination in schools. During a congressional hearing in May, she refused to cite a single example of a time when she thought it was appropriate for the federal government to intervene in cases of discrimination by private schools receiving federal voucher funds. Secretary DeVos has said that she opposes discrimination in any form—but under her leadership, the U.S. Department of Education is rolling back its enforcement of civil rights laws and undermining critical protections for vulnerable students.

Laurence M. Vance: Vouchers, thy name is welfare

  Elisabeth “Betsy” DeVos — whose father-in-law is a co-founder of Amway, the multilevel marketing company, and whose brother is the founder of the notorious mercenary firm Blackwater — was confirmed by the U.S. Senate a few weeks ago to be the eleventh secretary of Education. Because two Republican senators — Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — sided with the Democrats and voted against her nomination, Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm her.

  Liberals and progressives are strongly to opposed to DeVos because she is a long-time big donor to the Republican Party and conservative organizations, a religious and social conservative who has spent heavily on Christian conservative causes, and especially because she is a strong proponent of charter schools and educational vouchers.

  Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated schools. DeVos has said that she wants every family to have “educational choice,” which is code for government vouchers that allow parents to send their children to private or religious schools of their choice, at public expense.

Charles C. Haynes: Under the First Amendment, religious freedom favors none, protects all

  Louisiana State Rep. Valarie Hodges used to be a big fan of school vouchers. “I liked the idea,” she explained, “of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school.”

  Then last month Hodges got a First Amendment reality check when she discovered that Christian schools wouldn’t be the only religious schools getting tax dollars.

  “Unfortunately, it [vouchers] will not be limited to the Founders’ religion,” she said. “We need to ensure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”