Category: School Choice

School Choice and the LGBTQ Controversy

George Noga

Progressives would see all children drown rather than provide lifeboats for some. 

School Choice and the LGBTQ Controversy
By: George Noga – May 24, 2020

      Progressives in Florida have worked themselves into a lather because some families exercise their freedom of choice under the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program to send their children to religious schools that are not LGBTQ friendly. They would rather take away the freedom of over a hundred thousand families than permit a few families to use their liberty to make choices with which they disagree.

        The LGBTQ scare is a smokescreen; liberals always have hated school choice because they are enamored with big government and teachers unions. From the start of the school choice movement, at which I was present, opponents have demonized choice. At first, they claimed vouchers could be used to fund schools run by the KKK or witches covens. Their latest claim that religious schools are anti-LGBTQ is being used as a bludgeon against corporations participating in the scholarship program and, in these hyper-PC times, they have caused a few companies to quit the program.

        A key question is: “Whose money is it, anyway?” No one objects to families using their own money for their children to attend the school of their choice. So, to whom does tax credit scholarship money belong? Credits differ from vouchers, which are funded by government. Unlike vouchers, credits never were state funds. The tax credit program was built on the principle of funder choice to keep government out and to permit families to choose. Progressives treat scholarship families as inferior to those using their own funds to pay for their children to attend the same schools.

        That government schools discriminate against religion is obvious; less obvious is that public schools promote their own religion. They teach a vapid, politically correct, secular and valueless orthodoxy that, instead of reinforcing parental values, is antithetical to them. Tax credit scholarships permit the lucky recipients to escape failed government hell holes, which often are petri dishes for social dysfunction and breeding grounds for behavioral pathologies. Progressives oppose religious schools but force children to attend schools that indoctrinate them with the government religion.

        Critics of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program are hard at work cudgelling companies with the club of political correctness if they don’t agree to quit participating. However, if companies quit the program, that means fewer scholarships inasmuch as  companies can’t pick and choose who receives the scholarships or which schools recipients choose. Thus, a family may not, for example, have a scholarship available to move their LGBTQ child from a public school where he/she is being bullied relentlessly into a private school that provides a safe, nurturing environment.

       Progressives are acolytes of the secular, valueless government religion; they hate it when even one person sends their children to a real religious school. They shamelessly have used the KKK and witches covens as scare tactics. Progressives would much rather see all children drown than to provide lifeboats, solely because they object to the choices a few people on the lifeboats may make.

Our next post on May 31st chronicles the death of the American dream.
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us

Government Accountability is an Oxymoron  

George Noga

The most powerful force on earth is a consumer armed with a free choice.   

Government Accountability is an Oxymoron  

By: George Noga – December 1, 2019  

  

Since founding the school choice movement in Florida 25 years ago, I have debated many apologists for government schools. Invariably, their go-to argument is that private voucher schools are “unaccountable“. When everything else fails, they trot out this moldy canard. It’s time for me, once and for all, to demolish this fairy tale.  

    

            Everyone wants accountability for the products and services they consume. In free markets businesses compete to provide accountability for quality, safety and value. There is no such thing as an unaccountable free market. The most potent force on this planet is a consumer armed with a free choice; or, as Von Mises so eloquently put it, “Markets are a daily plebiscite in which every penny confers the right to vote“.  

    

          Markets deliver safety, quality and value in many ways. Foremost is branding, by which companies stake their reputation on products. When you vacation at Disney or buy an Apple computer, the reputations of the companies are on the line. Markets also deliver quality and value through franchising. If you eat at Wendy’s, you know what to expect. There also are third party rating firms like Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping, Underwriter’s Laboratories and BBB. Lastly, social media confer enormous power on consumers; a few terrible reviews can sink nearly any business.  

    

          Markets are accountable from the bottom up, with consumers exercising control directly. Government accountability is an oxymoron; to the limited extent it may exist, it is from the top down. Consumers can exercise limited control through the political process only once every four years. With government accountability, voters select candidates with positions on numerous issues; with markets, consumers make a choice about one specific good or service. In many jurisdictions accountability is impossible due to political domination by interest groups and voting blocks. With government schools there is no branding, franchising, independent rating agencies or social media.  

    

        Contrast market accountability (Uber) with government regulated taxis. With Uber, consumers get location, name, photo, driver rating, fare and arrival time. They get a spotless car, pay via credit card and rate the driver. With taxis you get none of the above; you get an unkempt driver with poor English who drives aggressively. The taxi has a musty odor, blares obscene music and costs triple Uber; complaints are futile. Which is more accountable, the market (Uber) or government (taxis)?  

    

           An independent review of Providence, RI schools with 25,000 students found peeling lead paint, brown water, leaking sewage, rats, frigid temperature, classroom chaos, bullying, no discipline and rampant violence. Only 5% of students were at grade level. Unions protect failed teachers and principals, who at worst are placed in rubber rooms with full salary and benefits. Government blamed lack of funding even though spending was $18,000 per student – 50% above the national average. Not one person ever has been held accountable and these horrors have been going on for decades.   

    

         In sharp contrast, Providence charter and voucher schools are successful. Instead of expanding charters and vouchers, government and unions want to impose more regulations on them in the name of – you guessed it – accountability. They are trying to turn charters and vouchers into the same veritable hell holes parents are fleeing.  

  

         Lack of accountability in government is endemic just like waste, fraud and abuse. The only way to reduce these evils is to slash government spending; there is absolutely no other way.  We can increase accountability and simultaneously reduce cost, waste, fraud and abuse by giving every parent a 100% school voucher.   

  

        The next time you hear that voucher schools are unaccountable, remember Uber, taxis and rubber rooms. Remember that free markets always are accountable and that government accountability is an oxymoron. Above all, remember the Providence schools; how much of that kind of accountability do you want for your children?  

Medicare for all? Next, we take on the Canadian national health care system.   

 

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More Liberty Less Government –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us 

 

My 25 Years in the School Choice Movement

George Noga
Ron DeSantis is Governor of Florida today because of 100,000 black voucher moms.
My 25 Years in the School Choice Movement
By: George Noga – January 20, 2019

       I started the school choice movement in Florida in 1994 by raising money for private vouchers for children in poverty – 80% of whom were minorities; it was an overwhelming success. Assisted by a new tax credit law, we rapidly expanded. The program, now called Step Up for Students, grants over 100,000 scholarships each year at a cost of $400 million. Due to the Florida success, I was invited to join the board of  Children First America, which began voucher programs in over 100 cities. This posting offers reflections and observations based on my quarter-century in the movement.

1. School choice is a winning issue. Ron DeSantis is now Governor of Florida because 100,000 black voucher moms voted for him by a huge margin over Andrew Gillum, the black Democrat candidate, who vowed to abolish vouchers. Black women voted 18% for DeSantis only 9% for Scott and 7% for the GOP nationally. DeSantis also got 44% of the Hispanic vote. Doug Ducey won Governor of Arizona by corralling 45% of the Latino vote versus only 30% for McSally – again due to school choice.

2. Vouchers increase funding for public school children. Teacher unions, contrary to all logic, argue vouchers diminish funding for children in government schools. Assume there are 100,000 students is a school district funded at $10,000 per student, or $1 billion in total. If 20% receive vouchers for $5,000 (50% is typical), the 80,000 kids remaining in public schools now are funded at $900 million, or $11,250 each, equal to an increase of $1,250, or 12.5% per pupil remaining in government schools. QED

3. Choice is ultimate accountability. Opponents’ go-to argument is that voucher schools are unaccountable. Government schools are run by stultified, politicized and unionized bureaucracies whereas private schools are accountable directly to parents and students. A consumer armed with a free choice is the most powerful force on earth. Imposing rules on voucher schools turns them into the hell holes parents are fleeing and causes good private schools to shun vouchers, thereby reducing options for children from poor families. The state doesn’t interfere in schools where parents pay tuition directly, only in those that accept vouchers. They thus treat voucher parents as inferior to others.

4. Opponents always use race, class warfare and scare tactics. Even though I raised money from white businessmen to fund vouchers for black and Hispanic kids, I was called racist every time I spoke in public. Critics argue vouchers are bad because some kids are left behind; this is like asserting everyone should drown because there aren’t enough lifeboats to save everybody. Nor do vouchers skim the best students; voucher kids are indistinguishable from public school kids in every demographic.

5. School choice is about more than education. Government schools teach a vapid, PC, secular, valuless orthodoxy. Choice allows parents to select schools that reinforce, rather than contradict, parental values. Choice permits parents to select a safe environment versus metal detectors and perpetual police presence and to escape public schools, many of which are petri dishes for social dysfunction and breeding grounds for behavioral pathologies. Choice permits children to escape being held hostage by those standing in the schoolhouse door blocking their escape. Choice would be highly desirable even if there were no differences in educational outcomes.

6. Public schools are a jobs program for adults. Voucher schools that fail are closed. No government school ever closes. Inept and dangerous teachers can’t be fired; instead, they are shuffled among schools or paid to sit in rubber rooms. The problem is not that there are a few bad apples, but that there aren’t enough good apples.

        School choice has come far in 25 years but has a long way to go until that magical day when every family in America has the power to choose. The 2018 election proved school choice is a winning issue among black and Hispanic voters. That should scare the bejesus out of teachers unions, progressives and others who are preventing poor kids from escaping failing schools. More importantly, it should embolden politicians of all stripes to embrace school choice – which is the civil rights issue of our time.

Watch for our special mid-week posting on Thursday, January 24th.

The True Cost of Public Schools

George Noga
Public schools spend as much or more per student than even the most elite
and expensive private schools. This post presents a fair and correct analysis.
By: George Noga – April 1, 2016

   This is not an April Fool although teachers unions and school administrators (“educrats”) wish it were. It is a fair comparison of spending between elite private schools and public schools. It compares Trinity Prep and Lake Highland Prep to a typical Orange County, Florida public high school. Note: Trinity and Lake Highland are the creme de la creme of elite Central Florida preparatory schools offering small classes, top notch facilities, individual attention and every possible tool for success.

   The all-inclusive (books, transportation, etc.) cost of attending Trinity and Lake Highland currently is $19,000. The spending per student from the Orange County education budget is $11,000; however, that figure fails to include education spending elsewhere in the county budget and off the budget. It does not include federal funds (average 10%), grants from governments and other organizations (5% estimate) and funds paid by parents and students (5% estimate). These items increase public school spending by $2,200 per student to $13,200 – but wait – we are only getting started.

   There is other off budget spending including: (1) proceeds from bonds and other debt; (2) health care including retirees; (3) pensions; and (4) debt service on school and/or mixed purpose bonds. The county budget does not break out these items; therefore, estimates are necessary. A fair guess is this spending adds another $2,200 or 20%, raising the spending to $15,400 per public school student. Note: A CATO Institute national study found public schools spend an additional 44% that is not contained directly in the education budget; herein we have added 40% which is less than the CATO average.

   There is even more chicanery in public school budgets; they artificially inflate the number of students to make their numbers appear better. They accomplish this by counting students who may attend as few as one class per year. For an apples-to-apples comparison, we must decrease the number of students 12%. This raises the spending of public schools to $17,500 per equivalent student. Finally, high schools on average spend at least 10% more per student than lower grades. This final adjustment raises the per student spending of Orange County public high schools to $19,250.

   There you have it! Public high schools spend about the same or even slightly more per student than the most elite private schools; they spend more than double that of the top Catholic high school in the area and 300+% more than the average private school.

   It is not accidental that no human being knows the true spending on public schools. Educrats and unions intentionally make the data as opaque as possible to prevent anyone from doing what I tried in this post. This is similar to Lynx buses which have intentionally painted over windows so citizens can’t see how empty they really are.

   We need independent audits of county public school systems so citizens will know the true amount of spending. Until that happens (phat chance) I stand behind my analysis that public schools spend about the same per student as the most elite private schools. Ponder the ramifications. Every student now attending public school could have an education equivalent to the most elite, exclusive and expensive private school. School choice truly is the civil rights issue of our lifetime and that is no April Fool!

The next post on April 10 pillories Democrats’ Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinners.
MLLG

School Choice: The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time

George Noga
By: George Noga – December 1, 2014
        In seven years of authoring this blog, I  wrote about school choice only one other time – once in 300 posts. I have shied away from that subject despite (perhaps because of) having been deeply involved in the school choice movement for ten years from 1994 to 2003. I started the first school choice program in Florida, and only the fourth in the entire USA, in 1995. The program I began (now called Step up for Students) funded 68,000 scholarships this year with a budget of nearly $300 million. During much of that time I also served on the board of the leading national school choice organization, Children First America, which began school choice programs in 100 US cities. This subject is not a new one to me.
“Imagine many kids died because ambulances drove right past private hospitals and would take seriously injured kids only to a public hospital.”
        It is not hyperbole or overstatement to assert school choice is the civil rights issue of our time. Actually, it is far more than that. Although people of color suffer most from the current educational paradigm, everyone is victimized. Imagine there was a terrible accident involving a school bus full of kids and there was a private hospital nearby ready, willing and able to provide high quality care. Now imagine the ambulances would not take the severely injured children to the nearby private hospital – insisting they could only be taken to a more distant public hospital that provided inferior care. Imagine some kids died as a result and imagine the ensuing public uproar. That is precisely what is happening in our schools; poor and middle class kids are dying educationally (and some literally) – yet there is little or no public outcry.

       Never have I seen an issue so demagogued and so rife with downright lies and with those promulgating the lies knowing full well they are lies. In the following parts of this post, I address many of these canards.

  1. School choice takes money from public schools: Let’s stipulate there are one million students in a particular school district and spending is $12,000 per pupil; total spending therefore is $12 billion. If 20% are given vouchers for $6,000 (50%) and total spending remains the same, the per pupil spending on the remaining 800,000 kids in public school now is $13,500 – an increase of $1,500 per pupil. Yet educrats and teachers unions want you to believe public school funding has been cut when it actually increased $1,500 per student or 12.5%. If every student had a voucher we could slash spending on education by 30% to 40% and improve school quality to boot.
  2. Private schools are not accountable: This is the biggest lie of all. If a parent has a problem with a public school, it is nearly impossible to seek redress. Public schools are accountable only to stultified bureaucracies and unresponsive school boards and not to students or parents. Private schools are directly accountable to students and parents. A consumer armed with a free choice is the most potent force on earth – recall New Coke and Blackberry.
  3. We don’t spend enough on schools: Real (inflation-adjusted) spending has doubled or even tripled in recent decades while schools got much worse. The US spends more per pupil than nearly any other OECD country while test scores in math, science and reading are in the middle of the pack. Actual public school spending is much higher than reported because much of it is hidden, i.e. off the school budget in capital budgets, pension plans, health care, debt service and grants. Often, real spending is double that shown on the education budget. Washington D.C. in 2010 spent $30,000 per pupil and had the worst schools in America. Sidwell Friends, one of the most elite private schools in the USA and where the Obamas send their children, spends only slightly more. Moreover, there is no proven correlation between school spending and any measure of educational output.
  4. Teachers unions and educrats care about students: The educational blob is nothing more than a jobs program for adults. New York state (population 19 million) has more school administrators than all of Europe with a population of 700 million. The head of the teachers union once said he would begin to care about students once they started paying union dues. Out of over 100,000 teachers in California, an average of 2.2 are fired each year for poor performance. Union tenure and seniority rules are nothing but a union racket.
  5. Private schools skim the best students: Every study published shows this is false. Voucher students in private schools are indistinguishable from public school students in every demographic. There is absolutely no skimming of the best students. The popular movie, Waiting for Superman, depicts the cri de coeur  from ordinary, anguished parents facing long odds to save their kid’s life by securing a voucher in a lottery.
  6. Teachers are underpaid: If this ever was true in the past, it has not been true for a long time. When accounting for hours worked and all benefits, teachers are overpaid by more than 50% per a study by the American Enterprise Institute. A typical teacher with a $50,000 salary will receive another $52,000 per year in benefits compared to $20,000 in benefits for a worker in private industry. Teachers have great pay, outstanding benefits, light work loads and ironclad job security despite graduating in the bottom two quintiles of their class.
  7. Vouchers favor the rich, resegregation, scare tactics: With all the facts against them, the education blob (educrats, unions, politicians) resort to scare tactics. They play the class warfare card by asserting vouchers favor the rich. News flash: the rich already have school choice by controlling where they live and via private schools. The blob then says the “rich” could add to the vouchers and send their kids to even better schools. Their argument is they don’t want to help poor kids just because some rich kids might possibly do even better. Race baiters play the race card claiming private or charter schools are more segregated – an argument shot down by the Supreme Court.
         In addition to the above myths, many other significant facts favor school choice. Foremost among these is the matter of values. Public schools teach a vapid, secular, valueless orthodoxy. School choice permits parents to select schools that reinforce, rather than contradict, parental values. Another issue is child safety. Public schools require metal detectors and a perpetual police presence and for good reason. Public schools, particular those in inner cities, have become petri dishes for social dysfunction and breeding grounds for behavioral pathologies. The blob is holding the kids hostage.
“Inner city schools are petri dishes for social dysfunction and pathologies.”
         The favorite story from my time in the school choice movement concerns Tommy. When he attended a failing public school, he continually feigned illness and did everything possible to avoid going to school. In utter desperation, his parents applied for a voucher from our organization for Tommy to attend a private school. After a few months at his new school, Tommy awoke one morning with a fever and obviously was ill. Nonetheless, Tommy insisted on attending school that morning. When his astonished mother asked him why, Tommy replied, “Because my teachers are counting on me.”
        There are millions and millions more Tommies in America and we are killing them educationally just as surely as the ambulances that would not take dying kids to a private hospital. The ones we don’t kill, we doom to lives of dysfunction and desperation. Shame on educrats, teachers unions, politicians, NAACP and their enablers. And yes, shame on unionist public school teachers too, for they are part of the problem. All these people are standing in the schoolhouse door, just like Orval Faubus in 1957, blocking desperate children from leaving. School choice is the civil rights issue of our time!