Ridgewood NJ, President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to nominate Betsy DeVos as Secretary of the United States Department of Education. A leader in the national school reform movement for more than two decades, Betsy DeVos is a highly successful education advocate, businesswoman, and philanthropist.
“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” said President-elect Donald J. Trump. “Under her leadership we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families. I am pleased to nominate Betsy as Secretary of the Department of Education.”
“I am honored to accept this responsibility to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again,” said Ms. DeVos. “The status quo in education is not acceptable. Together, we can work to make transformational change that ensures every student in America has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential.”
A native of Michigan, Betsy DeVos has spent decades advocating for school choice reforms and helping underserved children gain access to quality education. Ms. DeVos is chairman of the American Federation for Children whose mission is to “improve our nation’s K-12 education by advancing systemic and sustainable public policy that empowers parents, particularly those in low-income families, to choose the education they determine is best for their children.”
Ms. DeVos is chair of the Windquest Group and has also served on national and local charitable and civic boards, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, American Enterprise Institute, The Philanthropy Roundtable, Kids Hope USA, and Mars Hill Bible Church.
Q: There’s been a lot of talk about Common Core. Can you provide some straight talk on this topic?
Certainly. I am not a supporter—period.
I do support high standards, strong accountability, and local control. When Governors such as John Engler, Mike Huckabee, and Mike Pence were driving the conversation on voluntary high standards driven by local voices, it all made sense.
Have organizations that I have been a part of supported Common Core? Of course. But that’s not my position. Sometimes it’s not just students who need to do their homework.
However, along the way, it got turned into a federalized boondoggle.
Above all, I believe every child, no matter their zip code or their parents’ jobs, deserves access to a quality education.
Q: What are your thoughts about specific education policies?
I am very excited to get to work and to talk about my thoughts and ideas on making American education great again. The status quo is not acceptable. I am committed to transforming our education system into the best in the world. However, out of respect for the United States Senate, it is most appropriate for me to defer expounding on specifics until they begin their confirmation process.
In September 2016, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld education savings accounts (ESAs) as constitutional in the Silver State. ESAs are distinct from other parental choice mechanisms in education, especially K–12 private-school vouchers. Other options only enable parents to choose the school for their children—something which, in the case of vouchers, opponents have argued constitutes state aid to religious institutions because some children attend religious schools. Teachers unions and other associations have used this argument in court, citing so-called Blaine amendments in state constitutions to block vouchers. Blaine amendments are state constitutional provisions that prohibit public funds from flowing to private religious institutions.
Both research and legal precedent demonstrate that the ability to direct ESA funds to multiple education services and products separates ESAs from school vouchers. This is a critical distinction for states to recognize when considering parental choice options. Blaine amendments to state constitutions, such as the provisions in the Arizona and Nevada constitutions, have an ignoble history and should be repealed. Moreover, the distinctive policy design of ESAs makes the accounts well-positioned to withstand legal challenges based on Blaine amendments.
Diversity and Customization in ESA Use Among Arizona Families
In 2011, Arizona lawmakers enacted the nation’s first law establishing ESAs. The state deposits a portion of a child’s allotted funds from the state education formula into a restricted-use bank account that parents use to buy educational products and services for their children. Parents and students can use the accounts for online classes, private school tuition, personal tutors, saving for college, and financing a variety of other learning experiences. Every child is different, and with an account, students and their parents can design an education as unique as they are.
After lawmakers enacted ESAs, teachers unions and other special interests challenged their legality in court. Arizona unions based their suit on the state’s Blaine amendment, which prohibits public funds from flowing to religious institutions. In 2014, Arizona courts ruled in Niehaus v. Huppenthal that ESAs do not violate the state constitution.
Arizona families have used these accounts to pay for a wide variety of education-related services, products, and providers. In 2013, the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (now EdChoice) conducted the first study of Arizona families’ purchases with the accounts.[1] Among those students, the study found that approximately 34 percent of account recipients used their funds for multiple learning experiences.[2]
Between 2012 and 2014, lawmakers expanded ESA eligibility to include children from active duty military families, children who had been adopted through Arizona’s foster care system, preschoolers with special needs, siblings of account holders, and students in public schools rated “D” or “F” on the state report card system. An updated analysis using ESA data from the Arizona Department of Education from the end of the 2013–2014 school year and the complete 2014–2015 school year, and including these new populations of eligible students, found relative stability in the proportion of families using their accounts to customize their children’s learning experience. Research from this time period found 28 percent of families using their ESAs to pay for multiple education services, products, and providers.
Although there was a modest decrease in the percentage of families using their ESAs for multiple services over the course of the two evaluations—from 34 percent to 28 percent—these results demonstrate that with a larger and different cohort of students over a different time period, a similar percentage of students still customized their learning experience with an account. In the analysis of families participating in the 2011–2012 school year, all participating students were children with special needs. These latest data include students made eligible through changes in the law since the first report. New eligibility criteria and the passage of time did not change how families value the accounts’ flexibility. Parents continue to access a diverse menu of products and services to meet their children’s learning needs.
Legal Challenge to ESA in Nevada
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought a lawsuit similar to that in Arizona against a recently established ESA program in Nevada. In September 2016, the Nevada Supreme Court upheld the accounts as constitutional as far as the state’s own Blaine amendment provisions are concerned. The program remains suspended, however, because the court ruled that lawmakers must revise the statute’s funding provisions—statutes specific to Nevada law that do not have national implications.
The research findings from Arizona are relevant for Nevada families waiting to use ESAs. In 2015, Nevada lawmakers made history by making every child attending a public school in the state eligible for an ESA. Before any children were able to take advantage of the new option, the ACLU filed suit to block the program. In Duncan v. State of Nevada, the ACLU made claims similar to claims made by teachers unions in Niehaus v. Huppenthal. Citing the Nevada constitution’s Blaine amendment, the ACLU attempted to block the Silver State’s ESA program by arguing that it constitutes state aid to religious institutions.
Blaine Amendments’ Ignoble Roots
During the latter half of the 19th century, Catholic families sought to establish Catholic schools as an alternative to the publicly funded common schools emerging in the United States at the time. Common schools sought to assimilate all students to a general sort of Protestantism, including use of the King James Bible and conducting devotional activities.[3] Maine Senator James G. Blaine sought to prohibit aid to “sectarian” schools. As the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged in Mitchell v. Helms, the effort had “a shameful pedigree that we do not hesitate to disavow…. Consideration of the amendment arose at a time of pervasive hostility to the Catholic Church and to Catholics in general, and it was an open secret that sectarian was code for Catholic.”[4]
Although the federal amendment failed, Congress subsequently required territories seeking admittance to the union to include similar prohibitions on public funds supporting religiously affiliated schools. That requirement, in conjunction with the 14 states that already had Blaine-type language prior to the federal effort, resulted in 29 states having such restrictions by 1890, and 38 states had adopted Blaine amendments by 1959.[5]
ESA Design: Helping to Withstand Blaine-Based Lawsuits
Nevada’s Blaine amendment says that “no public funds of any kind or character whatever, State, county or Municipal, shall be used for sectarian purpose.”[6] Thankfully for Nevada families, in September 2016, the state supreme court upheld ESAs as constitutional. The court held that ESAs provide money to families, who can use funds to pay for a variety of education-related products and services such as private tutors, private school tuition, and other expenses.[7] Families will be able to access ESAs pending identification of an appropriate funding source for the accounts.[8]
The defining feature of ESAs—that parents can make multiple choices for their children’s education—helped them survive a Blaine-based legal challenge in Arizona where the state supreme court had deemed a voucher program unconstitutional. In the 2013 Arizona Court of Appeals’ unanimous opinion, Judge Jon Thompson wrote that “[t]he ESA does not result in an appropriation of public money to encourage the preference of one religion over another, or religion per se over no religion. Any aid to religious schools would be a result of the genuine and independent private choices of the parents.”[9] In 2014, the Arizona Supreme Court denied the union’s appeal of the lower court’s decision, allowing the court of appeals decision to stand.
Critically, ESA funds are not reserved for specific schools or education providers. Funds are deposited into parent-controlled accounts, and parents can use the funds for an education-related provider, product, or service of choice. The ESA option “does not require any student to be enrolled in a private school, much less a ‘sectarian’ private school.”[10] The ability to direct dollars to multiple education services is a critical distinction between ESAs and other parental choices in education, including K–12 private school vouchers.
Customization Makes ESAs Unique Education Choice Mechanisms
The distinctive policy design of ESAs enables accountholders to finance multiple learning options beyond tuition at a private school. It also makes the accounts well-positioned to withstand Blaine amendment–based legal challenges. Such lawsuits against private school vouchers have alleged that these scholarships constitute state aid to religious institutions. Yet nearly 30 percent of Arizona ESA families are making multiple education decisions simultaneously in determining how and where their children learn. In this way, Arizona parents’ customization demonstrates what the courts have reasoned: ESAs are functionally different from other parental choices in education. Nevada courts reached the same conclusion.
—Lindsey M. Burke is Will Skillman Fellow in Education Policy Studies in the Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity at The Heritage Foundation. Jonathan Butcher is the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute.
Ridgewood Nj, On Tuesday, despite the Governor’s legal trouble, Governor Christie held his latest Fairness Funding Town Hall in New Providence, continuing to make the case for massive property tax relief and equal funding for every student in our state.
The Governor made it clear that its unacceptable to allow the failed, court-ordered school funding format to continue to fail inner-city students and short-change our surburban schools and taxpayers. The largest force opposed the Governor’s Fairness Funding Formula is the NJEA. They have spent millions to buy the support of Trenton Democrats to block any effort to reform school funding, making property taxpayers foot the bill for a failed formula.
The Governor’s plan to provide equal funding to every student across our state would translate into more money and property tax relief for 75% of school districts in the state. In New Providence, the Governor’s plan could translate into a $3,232 reduction in the average homeowner’s yearly property tax bill.
Atlantic City NJ, Atlantic City Councilman Jesse Kurtz proposed a school voucher referendum. The city council approved it unanimously. Now Atlantic City voters will decide on the future of K-12 education in their city. If they approve the referendum, all Atlantic City children will receive a $10,000 scholarship to attend the school of their parents’ choice at the same time that taxes will be reduced for the Atlantic City taxpayer.
Ridgewood NJ, in an effort to provide more freedoms to New Jersey’s charter schools, the Christie administration has proposed new regulations for the alternative schools that would include essentially waiving many of the state’s certification rules for educators in the highest-performing Charter Schools.
According to Education chief Kimberley Harrington a former classroom teacher and school administrator ,easing certification rules for teachers would be five-year pilot program.
Some practices are already taking place , but others, like a proposal to offer a new, wide-open “alternate route” for educators will only be available to the top-performing charters.
There would be some requirements in experience and knowledge, but under the new proposed regulations, these schools could hire teachers and administrators without the same Certification demands for coursework or other training.
The new regulations would also provide greater freedom for charter schools to using operating funds to secure facilities and also to grant access to closed local district buildings.
Harrington claimed that the moves are meant to provide more leeway for innovation while maintaining the state’s oversight of the schools.
The new rules come in conjunction with Governor Christies new education funding push called the “Fairness Formula ”
On October 4th the Governor said ,” On every level this is an obscenity. We’re paying a king’s ransom for a lousy education. We’re lying to families that in the main are underprivileged, and we’re denying these children a chance at a better life, to a better education, and at the same time we are absolutely fleecing you. Because you’re sending more of your income tax dollars to failing school districts, and because you’re getting less to your school district, you’re having to pay even more in property taxes than you otherwise should. And, by the way, the bloated governments in these Abbott districts aren’t saving money for their districts because we’re sending them so much. No, remember, they’re only paying 25% of their property taxes towards education, where’s the other 75% going? 75% is going to local and county government, you aren’t even saving them money in the process. For 30 years, the Supreme Court has foisted upon us a failed theory, which is more money equals better results. Well everybody, we don’t have to theorize about this anymore. We’ve had 30 years of evidence, and the education in the main with the exception of 4 of the 31 districts is just as bad or worse today than it was 30 years ago. Only 4 of the 31 districts have graduation rates at or above the state average, the other 27 are below, and often, as in Asbury Park, well below the state average. This experiment has failed, yet we have been conditioned by the educational establishment in this state to believe that if we ever talk about less money rather than more, new rules, new ways of teaching, new ways of approaching this rather than the old ways, that we are anti-teacher, that we’re anti-student. What could be more anti-student than this system?”
In New Jersey ,Abbott districts are school districts in the state that are provided remedies to ensure that their students receive public education in accordance with the state constitution. They were created in 1985 as a result of the first ruling of Abbott v. Burke, a case filed by the Education Law Center. The ruling asserted that public primary and secondary education in poor communities throughout the state was unconstitutionally substandard. The Abbott II ruling in 1990 had the most far-reaching effects, of ordering out sized funding to the(then) 28 Abbott districts at the average level of the state’s wealthiest districts.
On average, 52% of property taxes statewide are spent on the school tax and in many districts it is as high as two-thirds. Consider some of these most-successful school districts that spend exponentially less per pupil, despite their local residents being burdened by higher property taxes and little return from their state taxes.
Clearly more school choice is going to be one of corner stones of the new education formula . The Governor’s proposal is an attempt to solve New Jersey’s two most pressing issues, failure of urban education and unsustainable property taxes. Both of which continue to drive middle-class tax payers and businesses out of the state .
New Jersey property taxes are currently the highest in the nation, predominantly caused by billions in tax dollars being poured into perennially failing urban school or Abbott districts.
The Governor’s Fairness Formula is an equal per-pupil funding plan that would provide tax fairness for all residents and better public education opportunities for every New Jersey student, no longer condemning certain students to failure due to their zip codes.
Graduation rates prove that educational success cannot be bought with excessive spending for chronically failing school districts. Abbott districts, receiving five times more per pupil than non-Abbott districts, have graduation rates that have been consistently 10 percentage points below the state average, according to New Jersey Department of Education data
By Adam Clark | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on September 22, 2016 at 1:45 PM
TRENTON — As New Jersey politicians debate changing the state’s formula for funding public schools, a new state audit has highlighted some specific flaws in the current system.
The report, released Wednesday by State Auditor Stephen Eells, shows that schools are both underfunded and overfunded in some respects based on the current model.
Among the problems identified are outdated data, inaccurate pre-K enrollments and an inadequate system for funding special education.
Here’s a look at three of the major findings from the review of school funding and the auditor’s suggestions for addressing the issues:
Ridgewood NJ, On September 8th GOP Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump unveiled four proposals to increase School Choice, and increase student performance.To achieve this long-term goal of school choice, Mr. Trump plans to make this a shared national mission; to bring hope to every child in every city in this land.
Trump said ,”As your president I will be the nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” , speaking from the Cleveland Arts and Social Sciences Academy charter school. “I understand many stale old politicians will resist, but it’s time for our country to start thinking big and correct once again.Trump went on to say that expanding school choice would help minority students who are currently trapped in “failing government schools.”
Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, weighed in on the proposal, giving it a big thumbs-up.
“The school choice proposals unveiled today by Mr. Trump are a bold set of policies that will increase accountability and lead to better results for our nation’s children,” he said. “These policies prove once again that Mr. Trump is the only person running for president who has the leadership required to make America great again.”
According to Trump ,the Trump team’s first budget will immediately add an additional federal investment of $20 billion towards school choice. This will be done by reprioritizing existing federal dollars. Specifically, Mr. Trump’s plan will use $20 billion of existing federal dollars to establish a block grant for the 11 million school age kids living in poverty. Individual states will be given the option as to how these funds will be used.
Trump’s proposal included as President,he would establish the national goal of providing school choice to every American child living in poverty. That means that we want every disadvantaged child to be able to choose the local public, private, charter or magnet school that is best for them and their family. Each state will develop its own formula, but the dollars should follow the student.
Going even further by saying Trump would use his presidency to be an advocate for school choice, using the pulpit of the presidency to campaign for choice in all 50 states and will call upon the American people to elect officials at the city, state and federal level who support school choice.
Then Trump challenged the status quo even more by supporting merit-pay for teachers, so that great teachers are rewarded instead of the failed tenure system that currently exists, which rewards bad teachers and punishes good ones.
Atlantic City NJ, with a state takeover in the air Atlantic City has had its share of bad fortunes lately and this November, when voters in A.C. head to the polls, they’ll not only decide whether to gamble on the state-wide casino gaming referendum but also vote on a pair of city-specific school choice ballot questions.
RESOLUTION TO PLACE NON-BINDING REFERENDUM QUESTIONS REGARDING SCHOOL VOUCHERS AND TAX CREDITS WHEREAS,
The City Council of Atlantic City is empowered with the authority to submit nonbinding referendum questions to the public in order to ascertain the sentiment of legal voters; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Council of the City of Atlantic City hereby submits the following questions to be printed upon the official ballots to be used at the next ensuing General Election as follows: “Shall the State of New Jersey designate the City to begin offering vouchers to families with children ages 6-16 so they can select the school they want their children to attend?” “Shall the State of New Jersey designate the City of Atlantic City to begin offering property tax credits to families with children ages 6-16 who choose to home school?”
The non binding Atlantic City school resolution was passed unanimously by the Democrat controlled governing body . The resolution is the creation of home schooled freshman GOP Councilman Jesse Kurtz, who is also a teachers union (NJEA) member .
Amazingly if the proposal is enacted, Atlantic City would become the first municipality in New Jersey to provide school vouchers. There is currently no law in New Jersey that would allow the city to give out vouchers to parents.
Kutz told the Atlantic City Impact a local paper ,”The vouchers would be redeemable at both private and public schools, pending space, and could save the city money if more students choose to attend private schools, Kurtz said. Students leaving the Atlantic City School District for private schools would reduce the district’s budget, therefore lowering the city’s budget as council tries to stave off a state takeover”
According to their website the Atlantic City teachers union the Atlantic City Education Association
(ACEA) clearly sees school choice as a threat ,and assures its members it “is vigorously fighting against these proposals.”
The Urban Institute a Washington DC think tank takes a different tact , “Evidence indicates that school choice programs can improve the educational and life outcomes of low-income students, but not all programs are equally effective. Charter schools such as KIPP and the Harlem Children’s Zone Promise Academy have large positive effects on the academic achievement of their (mostly disadvantaged) students.”
The Institute goes on to say , “School choice policy, like most education policy, is largely made at the state and local levels. But the federal government could allow states to enact funding systems where federal, state, and local dollars follow students to the public schools of their choice”.
Atlantic City’s gamble on the future of educational opportunities now rests on residents taking the first step and showing up on election day and making the choice for choice . Success of Atlantic City’s school choice and voucher initiative will be determined by parents , students and local administrators who can then craft educational policy that works best for the students of Atlantic City.
The county poaches all the best students for an elite education, stripping the local district, charging the sending district and the county taxpayers for the education. If a student and family wants an elite school for their kids, let them pay for it – full boat. Otherwise, vouchers for all kids. It’s a scam the county has played since the late school power broker John Grieco concocted. You may want to notice that they have no mandate to accept any special needs students like the local district – just an observation.
A New Jersey appeals court recently ruled that Gov. Chris Christie’s administration violated the state constitution when it awarded more than $11 million in funding to two religious schools. The Department of Higher Education awarded $10.6 million to Beth Medrash Govoha, a Jewish Yeshiva, and $645,323 to the Princeton Theological Seminary pursuant to the Building Our Future Bond Act Donald Scarinci, PolitickerNJRead more
Gov. Chris Christie championed his message that charters schools are a boon to urban communities across the state during a visit to Village Charter School in Trenton Wednesday. Greg Wright, NJ.com Read more
Citing a “broken and unaffordable” education system and lengthy waiting lists for charter schools, Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday proposed sweeping reforms that he said would give charter schools greater flexibility in hiring staff and better access to high quality facilities. Adam Clark, NJ.com Read more
America’s students as a whole lag behind many other industrialized nations on international tests. Government expenditures on K-12 education have more than doubled over the last 40 years (adjusted for inflation), and yet U.S. students’ academic performance at the end of high school is flat.
Posted by Matt Rooney On August 03, 2015 11 Comments
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Governor Chris Christie’s CNN interview continues to elicit strong reactions, Save Jerseyans, and the problem with this controversy, as with similar incidents, is that most folks are focusing on the style points. It’s among the regrettable byproducts of our presidential politics, cultural decline, and hyper-politicization of the education industry. But those are topics for another post…
What about the substance?
Let’s revisit, briefly, what these teachers’ unions are all about and objectively decide whether they deserve to exist (I’m not pulling any punches):
10) The union establishment’s demands are as unrealistic as they’ve been fiscally ruinous. NJEA members will donate $126,000 to pension and health benefits over 30 years but stand to collect $2.4 million in return. Who thought this was a good idea??? Are all of the calculators broken in Trenton? Of course not. It’s all part of an elaborate, decades-old double-whammy of vote buying and problem avoidance. Instead of hating Chris Christie, teachers should direct their ire to the politicians on their own union’s campaign season payroll. They did it.
9) Their chosen tactics are disgusting. Wisconsin’s recent experienceswere horrific, and the physical/verbal violence perpetrated by Big Labor’s storm troopers was 100% one-sided.
8) The system these unions ferociously protect is failing our country’s most vulnerable children, especially those students living in poorer, minority-concentrated school districts. Click here to check out my lengthy run-down of Camden High School’s plight (catalyzed by a give-and-take with my liberal friend of Inky fame Kevin Riordan) for the uncomfortable truth.
7) American Teachers’ unions = Democrat Party affiliates. After self-preservation, the teacher union establishment is primarily concerned with protecting the Democrats whose policies protect their power. A good faith union would avoid colluding with one political party or the other, pursuing and prioritizing the best interests of its membership and their children. Not the teacher’s unions; in this state and most others, and certainly nationally as Chris Christie pointed out, they function as a Democrat Super PAC. The American Federation of Teachers has already endorsed Hillary Clinton before either party held its first debate!
6) Dues tied up in waste and hypocrisy… so teachers lose, too: The NJEA collects a 9-figure annual sum in teachers’ taxpayer paycheck-derived dues; its regular and political arms spend many millions more in lobbying and both direct and indirect campaigning activity to influence public police. What do its members have to show for it???
5) Therefore, these unions have a financial incentive to protect bad dues-paying teachers at the expense of the education system. Much has been written on this topic but John Stossel did a particularly good job of illustrating how difficult it is to purge the suck; it’s a crisis that’s turned even hardened union veterans against the tenure-centric system.
We’ve all winced at the numbers. U.S. students rank 17th, 26th, and 21st on the reading, math, and science portions of the PISA exam – well below many of their international peers.
But even while we recognize that these numbers are bad, many of us secretly reassure ourselves that such is not the case with the local schools which our children attend. Surely the American children struggling to keep up with the rest of the world are in other communities besides our own, right?
Not necessarily. As recent test scores demonstrate, students from well-to-do suburban and rural areas might not be doing as well as we imagine.
A case in point is the Kettle Moraine school district, located on the outskirts of Milwaukee. The district’s superintendent describes Kettle Moraine as “‘a very good school district.’” In this district, “only about 10 percent of the 1,300 students at Kettle Moraine High qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and about 90 percent are white.” And with the high graduation rates and ACT test scores which many of its students achieve, one would have to agree that Kettle Moraine’s students seem to be ahead of the pack.
However, Kettle Moraine recently had the opportunity to take the OECD Test for Schools, an exam which channels the official PISA test, but adapts it for individual American schools to see how competitive they are on the global stage. As it turns out, students from the high-achieving Kettle Moraine district weren’t leading the global pack in a key area. They were behind.
