As Economic Tsunami Crashes into America's Schools, Government Leaders Like
DeVos Are Trying to Ram Through Their Agendas
Their proposals to privatize education and slash spending are the wrong way
to respond to a pandemic.
By Jeff Bryant
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, nearly all states have ordered or
recommended school buildings stay closed for the rest of the academic year,
according to Education Week's most recent count, and "schools are likely to
stay shut for months," according to the New York Times. Teachers are
responding to the crisis by continuing their heroic efforts to ensure
students are getting fed, staying engaged, and receiving ongoing instruction
via remote learning in some form. Meanwhile, economists and policy leaders
are warning that public schools are headed toward a financial crater unless
governments at all levels come up with emergency funds for schools.
But instead of rushing to rescue schools from financial calamity, many
government leaders-including U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos-are using
the pandemic to advance their personal agendas, whether it's to privatize
public education or balance budgets on the backs of school kids.
The predicted shortfalls will compound harm that's been done to a public
education system already in financial trauma.
Public schools haven't fully recovered from the beating they took as a
result of the Great Recession, argues a new report from the Albert Shanker
Institute, a research center affiliated with the American Federation of
Teachers. The downturn in the nation's economy that started in 2007 hit
schools hardest in 2009 to 2011, after states had slashed education budgets
and aid that came from the federal stimulus package had run out. The results
were "fewer teachers and support staff, larger classes, and a narrower array
of academic and extracurricular programs," the report explains.
The report's authors, Rutgers professor Bruce Baker and Shanker Institute
senior fellow Matthew Di Carlo, call on the federal government to respond to
the pandemic with a large aid package for public schools and requirements
for states to direct money where it's needed most-to high-poverty
communities in deepest distress and "according to student needs." State
leaders, the authors contend, must move to restore state funding levels to
what they were before the recession hit.
Instead of taking this advice, what we see are political leaders in both
parties going in the opposite direction.
DeVos Doubles Down on Privatization
It's bad enough that emergency aid for schools provided by the federal
government is woefully short of what is needed, according to a broad
coalition of education groups, but what's worse is that some of it is in
danger of being hijacked by Secretary DeVos.
As Matt Barnum reports for Chalkbeat, DeVos has announced she will direct
$180 million in federal coronavirus relief for schools into grant programs
for funding two of her pet projects: turning public education into a voucher
system and transferring learning from classrooms to the internet.
"It's the latest example of the department aligning its coronavirus response
to the Trump administration's political preferences," Barnum writes.
The vouchers, what DeVos calls "microgrants," mimic what are commonly called
education savings accounts (ESAs), a policy idea promoted by right-wing
policy advocates including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC),
former Florida governor and failed presidential candidate Jeb Bush, and
Charles Koch and his late brother David.
ESAs are "the most market-based and the least accountable" form of school
choice, says Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public
Education, which has called on Congress to stop DeVos from going forward
with these options.
The way the programs work, Burris explains, is that tax dollars designated
for education are given to parents in a "savings account" with a debit card
that can be used to pay for education products and services such as tutors,
home schooling, online courses, and private school tuition.
ESAs were first created in Arizona, Tennessee, Florida, and Mississippi as a
way around prohibitions against using public dollars for religious schools.
The vast majority of parents who participate in Arizona's program use the
money to pay for private school tuition, according to the New York Times.
Given that most private schools in Arizona are religious schools, it's
likely ESAs are mostly used to supplement parents choosing to opt out of
public schools for religious reasons.
DeVos's second option for states to expand online learning programs is also
problematic. A widely cited national study found students enrolled in
full-time, online-only schools lost an average of about 72 days of learning
in reading and 180 days of learning in math over a 180-day school
year-meaning, in math, an entire year of lost instruction. Studies of
statewide online learning programs have found disappointing results,
including those in Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, and Ohio.
DeVos wraps her ideas in the bold rhetoric of "rethinking" education, but
"the secretary is a longtime advocate of alternatives to public schools,"
notes NPR's Anya Kamenetz in her report on DeVos's announcement, pointing to
DeVos's years of supporting home schooling and vouchers.
DeVos's determination to direct more public money to private pockets is
explicitly written into the new grant program's instructions that students
who attend private schools must be eligible to participate.
Averting 'An Educational Catastrophe'
While DeVos's efforts to direct federal emergency aid for schools toward
privatization efforts are perhaps expected, what's more than disappointing
are reports that a number of state governors are already calling for deep
cuts to public schools.
Similar to what happened in response to the Great Recession, these leaders
are looking to balance the state's books by cutting spending rather than
increasing taxes, and education and health care will suffer most.
Among the state leaders calling for deep cuts to education is New York's
Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, who "plans to slash aid to localities by
$8.2 billion and cut state agency budgets by 10 percent," according to City
& State New York. "Cuomo has made a big point of opposing tax hikes all year
long," the local outlet notes, and the governor answered a reporter's
question about what local officials should do by saying, "Call Washington."
No doubt, states and cities are heading into uncharted financial territory.
Big city school districts including Denver, New York City, and across Ohio
are expecting severe budget trauma. A survey of city leaders found nine in
ten believed budgets were headed to shortfalls, and they were already
planning to cut services, including education.
Unless the federal government and state leaders take action to increase
funding for local schools, there will be an "educational catastrophe," warn
the leaders of the nation's largest school districts in a letter to
Congress, and as many as 275,000 teachers would lose their jobs.
"For states facing catastrophic revenue declines, asking more of taxpayers
with a clear ability to pay is far preferable to cutting state budgets,
which would lead to mass layoffs, steep cuts in public services, and a
downward spiral in the economy," write fiscal policy analysts in a report
for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
They point to a range of sources state leaders should consider tapping to
shore up funding for local schools, including personal and corporate income
taxes, sales and consumption taxes, and getting rid of laws that restrict
taxation.
New York is an excellent example of a state that has for too long neglected
to address the wealth and power structures that limit funding for public
goods and services like education.
In response to Cuomo's budget warning, public school advocacy group the
Alliance for Quality Education New York states, "There are 112 billionaires
in New York that have a combined wealth of $525 billion-almost 5 times New
York State's annual budget. A small tax on New York's ultra-rich would close
the budget deficit, without sacrificing our children and their future."
"We cannot avoid a budget crisis, but we can attenuate its negative effects
and shorten its duration," write Baker and Di Carlo in their Shanker
Institute report.
But ideologues like DeVos and state governors like Cuomo who want to use a
crisis to advance their own beliefs and careers are making matters worse.
Jeff Bryant is a writing fellow and chief correspondent for Our Schools, a
project of the Independent Media Institute. He is a communications
consultant, freelance writer, advocacy journalist, and director of the
Education Opportunity Network, a strategy and messaging center for
progressive education policy. His award-winning commentary and reporting
routinely appear in prominent online news outlets, and he speaks frequently
at national events about public education policy. Follow him on Twitter
@jeffbcdm.
