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The Private Eye: Josh Cowen’s Newsletter on School Vouchers and Right-Wing Politics
Billionaires Budgeting on the Backs of Kids and Families
Hey Everyone, So, this is my second-to-last newsletter with the great team at Education Law Center and Public Funds Public Schools. Although we’ll all still be working together in the fight for kids and families across the country, our formal collaboration will end when my fellowship wraps up in mid-May. I’m going to save my fifteenth and final newsletter to look back on the past year and look ahead into the future, but for this one I want keep focused on the state of play. First, Some Good News Let’s start with a few pieces of good news. In Utah, a state trial court ruled that the voucher scheme violated the state constitution. Kansas passed its state budget without expanding its voucher scheme as Republicans wanted to do this spring. In North Dakota, the Republican governor actually vetoed the legislature’s voucher proposal along with lawmakers’ efforts to further censor public school libraries. In his veto message on the latter, Governor Kelly Armstrong argued the library bill “represents a misguided attempt to legislate morality through overreach and censorship” and “imposes vague and punitive burdens on professionals.” Although Armstrong said he supports school choice conceptually, the voucher bill, in his words, “falls far short of truly expanding choice as it only impacts one [private] sector of our student population.” All of this means that right-wing billionaires don’t always win—even when it comes to their GOP allies. It’s possible to delay and even stop the so-called inevitable. The rush to vouchers is neither a mass movement of parents nor a tidal wave of history. It’s just an ongoing demand for a garden variety special interest subsidy that happens to be backed by some of the wealthiest people on the planet. Things change, and they will again. A Last Word (for now) on Texas But let’s be real, it looks pretty bleak in a lot of places if you’re a supporter of public schools and of public investments in kids and families. On May 3, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the massive school voucher scheme demanded of him by right-wing billionaires, from Betsy DeVos to Pennsylvania’s tech and crypto bro Jeff Yass. A photo of Yass himself celebrating at Abbott’s signing ceremony at the governor’s mansion was captured by a Houston Chronicle reporter. But that didn’t stop right-wing media outlets from continuing to pretend this is all about real parents and families. In fact, just before the voucher scheme passed a couple weeks ago, a handful of Republicans were getting ready to cross the aisle and work to put the voucher issue directly to Texas voters this fall. A last-minute call from Donald Trump himself to GOP legislators scuttled that effort, and in the end they went along with the plan to keep voters from having their say. Meanwhile, the public school funding bill passed by the Texas House stalled in the state Senate, threatening key resources depended upon by the vast majority of Texas families. The bill includes negotiated per-pupil increases and other investments—not enough, but something. I assume at some point some form of a school spending bill will have to pass, but the fact that vouchers for wealthy families are now law in Texas, and public school spending is still in limbo, tells you everything you need to know about these guys’ priorities. The Supreme Court Considers Religious Public Schools The U.S. Supreme Court just heard the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond case about the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. We’ll have to wait until late June or early July to find out whether the Court’s conservative majority will overrule the Oklahoma (also conservative) Supreme Court by allowing religious charter schools to operate. One thing I want to stress while we wait is that, like the proposed federal voucher scheme, a Supreme Court ruling that public charter schools can be religious schools would have massive implications for states across the country regardless of partisan political leaning. And if the Court imposes religious charters, it doesn’t quite seem in line with the notion of sending education back to the states. I’ve made clear that my own opposition to such developments isn’t about religion or even school choice. I’ve long argued that there is a role in today’s array of public schools for non-profit and secular charter providers to serve kids and families—as long as there’s strong oversight to make sure those kids and families are well-served. So too with common sense public school choice programs for intra- and inter-district enrollment. But let’s be clear: church-based public schools are neither common sense nor parental choice. It’s one more radical and extreme plan to erode First Amendment protections between individual religious practices and public policy. Federal Budgeting on the Backs of Kids and Families By the time you read this, MAGA Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives may have announced that the so-called Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) is included in their budget proposal. Recall that ECCA is a voucher scheme merged into a tax shelter for some of the wealthiest Americans. This would force vouchers into states like my home state of Michigan, plus top off voucher spending in states that already have them. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s own budget proposal guts spending on public education, health care, housing, and environmental and community support programs. Oh and there’s this happening at the exact same time: the team led by billionaire Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has just restarted student debt collection. How we spend our money tells us where our values are. With Trump and his billionaire backers and GOP enablers, that couldn’t be any clearer: tax cuts for the wealthy, price-hiking and chaotic tariffs that pass new costs on to middle class families, and deep cuts to the supports and services many of us rely on for basic things like health care and a good start to our education. These things all go together: from billionaire Jeff Yass partying with the voucher lobby after forcing vouchers into Texas, to the MAGA budget in Washington built on the backs of American families. Josh P.S. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, please consider joining the PFPS distribution list so you can receive future editions directly in your inbox.
News Stories to Follow—and a Note on Democracy and “the Price of Eggs”
Hi Friends, It’s always hard to sit down and try to write a few thoughts about the news. This fight against billionaires trying to privatize schools—and other longstanding public investments—seems to take a new turn by the day. So, I always worry that some new development will make whatever I put down here a bit out of date. But with that caveat, I still want to run through a few events and news items just to flag what I’ve been following and chewing on. And then I want to make a couple comments about something that’s never going to get old or out of date, and that’s connecting the fight for public education to the fight for democracy. Keep Your Eye on These Stories First, any minute now, the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond case about the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which will determine whether charter schools—independent but public schools—can be run by a religious entity. This has monumental implications for both public schools specifically and for the separation of church and state more generally. Education Law Center is co-counsel in the companion case, and the plaintiffs in that case filed an amicus brief in Drummond earlier this month. Next, make sure you’re following the pushback by state departments of education against the Trump regime’s threat to rescind federal funding over DEI initiatives. As of this writing, California, Minnesota, New York, and Vermont, as well as Colorado, Pennsylvania, Washington, my own state of Michigan, and ELC’s home state of New Jersey have responded to the federal threat by saying, essentially, “we already follow the law.” I also want to make sure we’re all monitoring the shutdown of regional offices serving Head Start families. It’s affecting providers across the country—there’s little or even no staff now to serve those providers. Here’s sample coverage from Michigan, but you can find similar stories in many states. Bottom line: this is a slow-moving disaster for so many families, and with everything else going on right now I’m worried it will get lost in the mix. Let’s not let that happen, okay? Finally, we’re all still waiting to see what happens with the so-called Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA)—aka the tax shelter for the wealthy that’s also a federal voucher scheme intended to ram vouchers into every state—even those that don’t want it. Those of us with our ear to the ground have heard conflicting things: maybe it will make it into the federal reconciliation process (where it would need only a simple GOP majority to pass) or maybe it’ll come up for a vote later in the year. One thing we know is that Betsy DeVos’s group is continuing to make this a top priority, so it’s something to keep monitoring closely. A Note on Democracy—Recapping the Network for Public Education Conference Now I want to give a shout out to Diane Ravitch, Carol Burris, and the entire team at the Network for Public Education for putting together an outstanding conference in Columbus, Ohio, on April 4-6. I had the honor of opening the conference with a Friday night fireside chat-type session with Diane. And then none other than Governor Tim Walz closed us out. In between, several of us working with or as part of Education Law Center contributed to and presided over panel sessions. These included ELC Executive Director Bob Kim, ELC Litigation Director Jessica Levin, and Sharon Krengel, who is ELC Director of Policy, Strategic Partnerships, and Communications. These panels ranged from a discussion of voucher impacts on neighborhood school closures, a recap of victories against the voucher push in both red and blue states, and a session I joined with the Economic Policy Institute’s Hilary Wething to walk through EPI’s fantastic tool that lets you calculate how much vouchers will cost any school district in the country. (Ongoing shout-out here as well to ELC’s own cost-calculator that lets you estimate the hit to your state education budget from a universal voucher program.)Bob, Sharon, and I also joined NEA’s Kyle Serrette for a standing-room-only discussion of the link between public education and democracy. One of the things that I struggle with in conversations like that is trying to connect some of the big, underlying philosophical goals—standing up for democracy, defending the principle of equal citizenship, and so on—with the everyday events in people’s lives. This is the education version of a debate that progressives are having right now in the aftermath of the 2024 election: do we talk about democracy, or do we talk about the price of eggs? The answer is both. The NPE conference took place on the same weekend that hundreds of thousands of people turned out in states across the country for a day of protests, demanding Hands-Off public schools, Social Security, Medicaid, and so much more. It was a highly specific, and unusually policy-focused type of organizing. But it was also democracy. I think the lesson there is that as much as we need to defend democracy as a core and motivating principle itself, we also need to remember that people experience democracy in many different ways. For a single mom trying to get extra support for her child learning with dyslexia, democracy might mean a public school that responds to that advocacy on behalf of her kid. For a guy with a longstanding, chronic health condition, maybe democracy means a law that prevents him from getting kicked off an insurance plan. For a senior living check-to-check on Social Security, maybe democracy means having a regional staffer return her call if the check goes missing or delayed. For someone who’s just lost their job, maybe democracy means a few extra dollars of support until they get back on their feet. Or, for thousands and thousands of folks with jobs, maybe democracy means the chance not just to survive by putting food on the table, but to thrive and invest some of their paycheck in their children’s futures. All of that is at stake right now. But the flipside is also true: all of that is still possible. And it’s with that possibility, that potential, and another call to defend that future that I’ll leave you this week. Josh P.S. 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Testimony, Texas, and Trump’s Department of Education Order
Hi folks, I’m taking a minute here after stops in Texas, South Carolina, and D.C. to regroup before a busy April of more public speaking. For those of you attending the Network for Public Education conference later this week, Diane Ravitch and I will be opening the event together with a special fireside chat on Friday evening. After that, I along with several members of the ELC team will be in a variety of panels throughout the weekend. Stop by and say hello! What I want to do with this newsletter is make a quick comment on Trump’s Department of Education executive order, flag Jessica Levin’s testimony to a House subcommittee and a new resource on the federal voucher tax credit scheme, and wrap up with a comment on my testimony to the Texas Legislature on March 11. Quick Word on Trump’s Department of Education Order The big education news in the last couple weeks has been Trump’s signing of his executive order to gut the U.S. Department of Education. I’ve said a lot about this in other spaces, including: My appearance on Fox News Live Now; My appearance on my local news station, WILX; And my column in The Conversation, syndicated elsewhere, too, explaining what Trump’s order does and doesn’t do. You can even check out my Instagram feed, where I’m posting a lot of quick commentary on news events like this. What you’ll find in any or all of those is this: to me, it’s important not to get too lost in the language of departments, agencies, EOs, Titles, and the like. These are all really important, but that’s what we have lawyers like the good people at ELC to do. For the rest of us, I strongly believe we need to be talking about how these activities harm local communities in terms of funding. Services. People. Already the layoffs, the rhetoric, and the confusion are creating real threats and harms to supports and services that families depend on—and I think we need to talk about that all of the time moving forward. Jessica Levin’s Testimony and New ECCA Resources Next up, I want to give a shout out to ELC’s Jessica Levin, who did her own testimony before the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education in Washington. I didn’t get a chance to watch that live because I was in the committee hearing down in Texas, but I know that Jessica did a great job standing up for the facts on school voucher schemes and for the need for more public school funding. You can watch the entire hearing here. Speaking of Congress, I also want to take a second to remind folks that the latest effort to pass a federal school voucher scheme—the so-called “Educational Choice for Children Act” (ECCA)—is still a threat. There’s a great new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy that walks through the details of this bill, which doubles as a tax shelter for some of the wealthiest Americans. What’s great about this report is it lays out how the tax credit version of vouchers works—basically, wealthy donors divert what they owe in federal (or state) taxes into a middleman organization that then distributes vouchers. But it also lets you see how much some of the billionaires behind the voucher political push—Betsy DeVos, Charles Koch, and even Elon Musk—could personally benefit from the latest scheme. Worth a look. I’ll also flag a recent piece of my own in Michigan’s biggest paper, the Detroit Free Press. In that piece, I walk through how the ECCA bill would force vouchers into states that don’t want them—like my home state of Michigan. And I also explain how that scheme would do almost nothing for families in the Michigan 5th and 7th Congressional Districts—the two regions closest to my town. I hope you can use a piece like this to make your own case against these schemes in your communities. Texas, Texas, Texas Forgive the cliché metaphor, but Texas really is the Alamo when it comes to efforts to fight vouchers in the states. With vouchers spreading through red states over the past three years, the big holdouts have been Tennessee and Texas, mainly because the DeVos/Koch/Yass strategy of primarying out rural Republican school voucher opponents has taken longer and been more expensive there than in states like Iowa and Arkansas. But with Tennessee falling earlier this winter—I was there in late January trying to fight back—the voucher lobby really is running out of real estate on their strategy. There just aren’t that many states left with supermajorities of GOP legislators vulnerable to reshaping by right-wing billionaires. That’s actually a big reason why ECCA, the federal voucher scheme, is getting so much effort in D.C. It would give Betsy DeVos and team a wholesale way of avoiding tough legislative fights in blue states. Which, again, leaves Texas. The March 11 hearing on HB3—the voucher bill introduced in the state’s House of Representatives—was a marathon session that lasted more than 22 hours. I was one of five witnesses invited and scheduled by House Democrats in the minority. The hearing began at 8 a.m. It took almost five hours for the bill sponsor and committee chair, Rep. Brad Buckley, to lay out his bill. He took questions from Republicans and Democrats alike, and despite a few grandstanding comments from GOP members about failing public schools (under the jurisdiction of their committee, I might add), this was a pretty informative and detailed discussion. I sat in the front row for all of it. Late in the afternoon, after the first round of three majority witnesses (in favor of the bill) and two invited witnesses in opposition, I gave my testimony alongside Paige Duggins-Clay, the chief legal analyst from the Intercultural Development Research Association, who’s also been a great ally to ELC on these issues and others. Our opening testimony lasted five minutes each, but then we took questions for another hour. I took a lot of questions from hostile GOP committee members about my background, what the research on vouchers really says, and specific issues I raised in the bill. But I don’t mind tough questions. And we’re not going to win or win back any of the things we value—whether that’s new investments in public education or across the policy space on issues like health care, jobs, or retirement security—without talking to the other side. I didn’t get a single question I couldn’t handle. If you’re reading this you probably already know my message on these billionaire-backed voucher schemes: vouchers threaten public school funding by subsidizing a new sector of kids who were already in private school; vouchers devastate student learning for the few kids who transfer from public school; and vouchers give private schools—not parents—the true choice of which kids to admit and which to leave out. What all that has in common with the U.S. Department of Education news—and with the larger political moment we’re in—is the dangerous ideology that crucial public investments in kids, families, and communities should be not just deprioritized but considered wasteful, and that those investments should be replaced with a go-it-alone approach that simply won’t work for millions of Americans. That’s an idea I reject, I think most folks do too, and when you have your principles and you have your facts, tough questions are just one more opportunity to make your case. Be well. Josh P.S. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, please consider joining the PFPS distribution list so you can receive future editions directly in your inbox.