I know, I know–those of you who follow this blog are tired of my periodic rants about MAGA’s war on public education. But the evidence–which keeps accumulating–is overwhelming.
A state’s economic development is critically dependent on the existence of an educated workforce, and Indiana’s legislature continues to demonstrate that most of its members don’t know what an education is, or how it differs from job training. Worse still, they have consistently attacked the state’s public school system, establishing voucher programs to siphon tax dollars from schools established to serve children from all backgrounds in order fund religious schools serving distinct tribes.
Voucher schools (which, as I always have to emphasize, are different from charter schools) were promoted as a way to allow poor children to escape “failing” public schools. They were sold on the premise that they would improve educational outcomes. Those improvements didn’t come; indeed, research after a number of years shows that public school outcomes are superior. (Private schools catering to the children of wealthy parents do perform well, but most of those schools don’t accept vouchers.)
Given all the evidence that vouchers do not improve educational outcomes, drain our public schools of critically-needed resources, and have an enormous negative budgetary impact in a state where legislators keep telling us we don’t have funds to continue summer food programs for children or medical care for the poor, Hoosiers might wonder why our GOP overlords continue to expand the program.
The Indiana Citizen recently answered that question. The Citizen interviewed Josh Cowen, a researcher who initially had viewed vouchers positively, but who–thanks to his research– has become an outspoken critic of the programs. I have been reading Cowen’s 2024 book “The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers,” and I recommend it. It describes how Christian nationalists and wealthy libertarians joined forces to “push vouchers from a fringe idea to the conservative mainstream.”
The report began by acknowledging the research:
Studies of statewide programs in Indiana as well as Louisiana and Ohio, found what Cowen describes as “some of the largest academic declines on record in academic research,” comparable to the impact on learning of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, which dramatically lowered test scores by disrupting students’ lives and keeping them out of schools for extended periods of time.
For Christian nationalists, Cowen said, vouchers amplify their ability to use K-12 schools to promote a version of Christianity marked by alignment with right-wing politics, a hostility toward reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ rights and racial justice initiatives, and, in some cases, a literal interpretation of the Bible, including the biblical creation story.
Private school vouchers are a huge part of the Christian nationalist long-term strategy, the idea that this kind of specific, right-wing interpretation of Christianity should dictate public policy and the law. These folks believe that education, from birth to adulthood, is absolutely key to the idea of, to quote Betsy DeVos, advancing God’s kingdom on earth. She laments that, in her words, public schools have displaced churches as centers of community. She sees vouchers as a cure for that.
Cowen points out that, unlike groups like Catholics that have long prioritized religious education, Christian nationalists have a very specific hostility to public schools.
It really gets back to this idea that public schools reflect this diverse, multicultural, pluralistic society in the United States. To the extent that these people don’t want a diverse, multicultural, pluralistic society, they really don’t want children spending eight hours a day in an environment that educates them to value those things.
Given their inability to claim better educational outcomes, Indiana legislators now argue that parents know best how their children should be educated. But as Cowen notes, if parental choice was really the motive, the state would require private schools to tell parents how they perform– to disclose student test scores and other relevant data. Instead, policymakers “have bent over backward, whether in Indiana or elsewhere, to make sure parents know as little as possible” about voucher school performance. There’s a reason for that.
Over the last decade, as vouchers have gotten bigger in Indiana and elsewhere, when you ask how private schools funded by vouchers are doing compared to public schools, the results are dreadful.
In Indiana, over 90% of voucher students spend our tax dollars at religious schools–and we know very little about what they are teaching. As Cowen says, “If the argument is that parents should have the right to teach their kids creationism, instead of science, I would say, “OK, fine, but not on the taxpayer dime.”
Read the article–or better yet, buy the book.
The Editorial Board at the Wall Street Journal published a piece this weekend with the headline: “Indiana’s Big School Voucher Breakthrough, The state expands education access, as choice boosts student K-12 achievement.” Here’s what it said:
Indiana has been a leader in expanding school choice for K-12 students, and better student achievement results have followed. Now Hoosier lawmakers are building on that success by further expanding access to private and charter schools in the state.
Gov. Mike Braun last week signed a budget that opens school choice to every Hoosier girl and boy. The state’s voucher program is already generous, covering about $6,000 of private-school tuition for most families earning less than $250,000. The new law eliminates the limits starting next year. Like traditional public schools, the voucher program will no longer turn away students based on their family’s income.
Lawmakers are also putting charter schools on par with traditional district schools by giving charters full access to local property taxes. Today school districts in nearly every state have a direct claim on property tax money, while charters are funded through special appropriations. Indiana’s reforms will let nearly all tax dollars follow students to whichever school they choose by 2029.
These reforms may save school choice from being smothered down the road. Indiana first launched vouchers and expanded charters during a period of enthusiastic reform under former Gov. Mitch Daniels in the 2010s, and Mr. Braun pledged to push further during his campaign last year.
But even in a Republican-led state, these programs face pressure when funding gets tight. Though private and charter schools tend to have stronger records of student achievement, traditional public schools have entrenched constituencies (read: unions) that lobby for scarce funds.
Allowing more students to attend nontraditional schools will increase support for choice. More than 20% of the state’s students attend a school other than the public one for which they’re zoned, and the shift has accelerated since 2020.
The difference for students is clear. Indiana eighth-graders ranked sixth in the nation in reading scores in the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, up from 19th in 2022. The state’s fourth-graders jumped 11 spots in the same assessment and now also rank sixth nationwide.
The latest school-choice reforms almost collapsed in the Legislature. State Senators objected to lifting the voucher limits, afraid that the $170 million cost of expansion would strain the budget. But House Speaker Todd Huston struck a deal to delay the change to next year, and to reduce funding for programs such as virtual education to offset the cost.
The results from expanded choice should be enough to protect it from political attacks, but the opponents never sleep. The key to choice success in the long run is letting the money follow the child no matter the school, public or private. Indiana has taken another step toward that ideal. [END]
The ideal, of course, is Project 2025.
Any chance the Indiana Supreme Court will uphold the Indiana Constitution? Universal Vouchers violate Art. 1, Sec. 6 by intentionally funneling Hoosier tax dollars into religious schools. Also, our legislators have violated their duty under Article. 8 Sec. 1 “to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.”
What I find troubling about our educational system is that it needs major revisions, but the people who control it dictate how the original system educates our children. Our “public servants” intentionally cause the public school system to fail as if to prove a point. We aren’t producing widgets, but our industrialized format of pushing through kids one year at a time is faulty.
I honestly don’t want our government (our two corrupt political parties) controlling the educational system. A separate and distinct organization should be charged with updating a system free from influence from politics and unions. The corrupt union apparatus in this country is absolutely part of the problem.
I believe there is a place for all different models in our system as long as they are evaluated and dropped when they fail our children. Religious schools have no place in our public education system. That shouldn’t be an option for parents, period. If they want to supplement religious training, we have nights, weekends, and summers to accomplish that goal.
I could go on and on, but as long as oligarchs (capitalists) run our educational system, it will fail its objectives.
I’ve had conversations with Gemini AI about Einstein’s article, Why Socialism, and got it to boil down his educational theory to one paragraph:
“Einstein advocated for an educational system that prioritizes critical thinking, curiosity, and independent learning over rote memorization and standardized testing. He believed education should foster a love of learning, encourage exploration and discovery, and develop socially responsible individuals who can contribute to the community. To achieve this, Einstein recommended curriculum reforms that emphasize interdisciplinary studies and inquiry-based learning, a shift to student-centered pedagogy, alternative assessment methods beyond standardized tests, and robust teacher training. He also emphasized the importance of cultivating imagination and a sense of wonder in students.”
Protestants endorsed slavery! They promoted slavery. So, did the mentality of those organizations change over the years? Usually, the churches don’t really change their dogma, it’s very rare when that happens. Even, if it’s been proven to be untrue, any dogma and question continues as it always has, without trying to tack in the right direction! So if that’s the case, why would you want to have your kids go to school with a bunch of mongrels! They really don’t want to have their children mixing with the lesser ones, because, and their mind, they are above all that. The Catholics, they endorsed slavery by the papal bull in 1493. This was done to quell the minds of the slave owners and slave traders and devoid them of guilt.
Let’s face it, organized religion is front and center with all of this! And it’s only going to get worse.
Republicans don’t want independently educated people, because they don’t vote for Republicans. The moguls of industry need those “widgets”, Todd, to fill their factories with cheap, unquestioning labor. You’re right. Our education system is still based on that early 20th century model of industrialized regimentation.
Now, however, with so many of those widget jobs and workers speaking Chinese for ten cents on the dollar of American wages, the religious “industry” sees fit to use them as institutes for indoctrination – as John Sorg suggests. Only the indoctrinated elites will hold the favored jobs after school/college, and they will vote for Republicans too. And we now see how well that’s working out. How about those nefarious, dark-of-night cuts to Medicaid for the poorer people who need it? Clearly, Republicans don’t care.
Sorry, I don’t know why it keeps posting and instead of in.
We all carry around in our brains two sets of recordings of what our senses have informed us about the world outside of ourselves over our lifetimes. We also noticed which seemed to be universally true and which seemed to be shared by groups, not so universal. Culture is for those who communicate with non-local people, revealed to be shared by some, but not all.
Words, for example, seem to be universal among most of those who live within our borders, but how they are pronounced is shared more locally.
I have 82 years of experience, with knowledge of things universally and locally true and even of things that are me alone. Most come from my senses, but some come from my imagination.
My parents, siblings, friends, and neighbors had the most considerable influence growing up, but that eventually transitioned to my family members, coworkers, and neighbors. It started locally but, over time, became global.
Another distinction is who influenced what I know and believe informally compared to formally, in life inside and outside classrooms.
I would be nowhere near the same person with less exposure to either.
We are all products of living from our time zero to now, from classrooms to our streets, from planned and unplanned sources, via regulated and unregulated processes, and in a world that changes daily. We are unique and diverse, and identical to billions of others of our species by various measures and even in some ways to every living thing.
We progress to the degree to which we collaborate with others in those exposures. Progress ends when collaboration does, and we seem to be stuck nationally in a society based on the power to make others behave rather than teaching how to negotiate outcomes between winners. Our national culture has been dragged away from collaboration to a power-based approach.
Progress is slowing.
The Wall Street Journal article that Laurie Gray referenced is apparently full of lies that conflict with the stats referenced by Mr. Cowen in the Indiana Citizen article. Since the WSJ is a favored right wing rag it makes me wonder if the author of their story was ordered to write a pro-school voucher article that includes falsified student achievement data.
Yep, Nancy. I wouldn’t want to sign my name to that editorial either. Thus the “Editorial Board” anonymity.
The WSJ article quoted by Laurie Gray is revealing of how propaganda works. By focusing on only two scores, fourth and eighth grade reading in national ranking, and by lumping all schools together rather than showing results from public, charter, and voucher schools separately, the writer skews the “news” to support a political viewpoint. People who trust the WSJ as a reliable source are no less gullible than those who trust Fox News. Only when competing views are presented with their supporting evidence should a source be trusted. For an example of how that can be done, read today’s article about the IEDC in the Indiana Capitol Chronicle.
“A state’s economic development is critically dependent on the existence of an educated workforce”….Is “economic development” the central goal of education? If so, the national right-wing change to focus on only teaching for jobs has reached to Sheila.
Todd and Einstein remind us what education should be about. Guess how we got where we are – not via critical thinking.
Too many people are in thrall to their siloed information sources. I would like to resurrect the “Fairness Doctrine”. People must see rebuttals to every story. When I speak with neighbors about any national news event, they are completely unaware of the facts in the case.
“It really gets back to this idea that public schools reflect this diverse, multicultural, pluralistic society in the United States.” OMG! Quick, kill it before it grows! “The only kind of larnin’ that is any good is the kind that serves us overlords!!”
What Pete and Peggy said. I think all children in US are entitled to a state of the art, scientific and researched based education. It’s not a specific building that you have to go to get it. With vouchers there is the opportunity for the state to require uniform standards that protect and allow all children to thrive. Schools that accept vouchers should not be allowed to pick and choose which students they accept. Religion doesn’t need to be taught unless its scientific like comparative religion. Bill of rights needs to post and taught in all voucher schools. Children and people need to be aware of the powers they possess and be guided in positive directions.
I hate these people and what they want to do to MY country. MY home. MY friends.
I had teachers in my family that might agree partially. But where my wife got her awards and flipped schools was in the private sector . IPS does best with fantastic leadership, but DEI and gender based issues caused parents to focus elsewhere.
I know of two inner city missionaries that are building private schools and are willing to teach kids for reduced pay because of the missing values.