The evil GOP bastards at the”Kochtopus” Death Star, the Goldwater Institute, are already plotting the next step in their 50 year strategy to fully privatize public education in Arizona (in violation of the Arizona Constitution). Howard Fischer reports, Lift on voucher cap in the works:
A key architect of the universal voucher plan approved Thursday is already looking to undermine the key provision of the compromise that secured the votes for the program’s expansion.
In a message to financial supporters late Thursday, Darcy Olsen, chief executive officer of the Goldwater Institute, said those who want to give more state money so parents can send their children to private and parochial schools should not be dismayed about the cap of about 30,000 that is in the final version of the bill.
“We will get it lifted,” Olsen said.
And Olsen didn’t even wait until Gov. Doug Ducey had penned his approval hours later to the delicately crafted deal, a deal in which the Goldwater Institute participated — and the deal that managed to bring on the bare minimum 31 votes in the House and 16 in the Senate to secure approval.
The comments angered Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa, who brought all the interests together and corralled the votes.
“I just think it’s deplorable that she would put that in print,” he told Capitol Media Services. And Worsley said what’s worse is that Olsen was involved in the talks.
“She was negotiating in bad faith with us if that was her intention,” he said.
Dude, it’s the Goldwater Institute. “Goof faith” is not in the lexicon of their vocabulary. Were you born yesterday?
An aide said Olsen was not available to comment. In her place, Goldwater President Victor Riches told Capitol Media Services that her message, meant for long-time donors, should not be taken as a vow to start working to remove the caps — at least not yet.
“It was probably not very artfully worded, I would say,” Riches said. (wink, wink.)
But Riches, who acknowledged Goldwater’s role in the final deal, would not commit to waiting that full six years before trying to get the cap removed.
“We’re not interested in making any changes right now,” he said. But Riches said he could foresee a scenario where waiting makes no sense.
“Let’s just say the present cap is hit and there is 20,000 people on the equivalent of a wait list,” he said. “Would we want to reevaluate that? Yes.”
Worsley said that is directly contrary to the whole purpose of cap, which would be about 30,000 by the 2022-2023 school year. He said the next six years are designed to be an “experiment” to see if it’s appropriate to keep the cap, increase it, or get rid of it entirely.
He said the six-year period gives the Goldwater Institute and other supporters of vouchers “plenty of freedom” to make the case for further expansion.
And Worsley had a message for the institute and anyone else who intends to try to make changes before then.
“That will not happen while I’m in the legislature,” he said.
But here’s the thing: With term limits, Worsley can serve in the Senate only through 2020. [And the “Kochtopus” dark money network in the state of Maricopa can fund a primary challenger, or run a smear campaign against him next year. Why wait?]
Someone who could be here longer is Ducey. If reelected next year, his term would run through 2022.
Only thing is, the governor, a self-professed supporter of “school choice,” will not commit to keeping the voucher limits in place through the end of his time in office.
“We have to see how the program works,” press aide Daniel Scarpinato said when asked if Ducey would veto any changes before then. Scarpinato said it’s premature to even be talking about changes as the law has not even taken effect.
What makes Ducey’s views so significant is that the ability of Olsen to pull apart the deal and scrap the caps could be dependent on whether the governor goes along.
The Goldwater Institute has links with the governor.
Doug Ducey, the ice cream man hired by Koch Industries to manage their southwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Arizona, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the “Kochtopus,” as is the Goldwater Institute, which is vertically and horizontally integrated into the Arizona legislature and state government. The “Kochtopus” owns this state, and don’t you forget it.
Victor Riches had previously been Ducey’s deputy chief of staff. Christina Corieri, Ducey’s education policy, came from the Goldwater Institute.
Ducey also tapped prior Clint Bolick, Goldwater’s vice president for litigation, as his first pick for the Arizona Supreme Court.
And that doesn’t count former Goldwater staffers elsewhere in the Republican power structure, including Michael Hunter as chief of staff to House Speaker J.D. Mesnard.
Those caps Worsley wants protected are the centerpiece of the deal.
* * *
Those caps, however, had been set to self-destruct after 2019.
Along comes Sen. Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, who sought to remove all those limits on who was eligible. And once those caps were gone, that would have entitled all 1.1 million students in Arizona schools to get a state-funded voucher, formally known as an “empowerment scholarship account,” to attend a private or parochial school.
That proved unpalatable to a majority of lawmakers.
The new law Worsley shepherded through the legislature on Thursday phases out all of the restrictions between now and 2020 on who can seek a voucher. On paper, that would make all public school students eligible for a voucher. But under the deal, the caps would remain, though they would increase slowly to about 30,000 by the 2022-2023 school year.
It wasn’t just Worsley’s vote that the hard cap through 2022 helped secure.
For example, in a prepared statement after the vote, Rep. Maria Syms, R-Paradise Valley, said she was convinced to go along because the bill “phases in expansion and puts a firm cap on the current program’s unlimited expansion.”
The caps are not the only changes that Worsley made to Lesko’s original universal voucher plan to line up the necessary votes.
Another key change deals with the cost of the vouchers themselves, those debit cards given to parents of eligible children to spend on everything from tuition and fees at private schools to tutors and even supplies for those who educate their children at home.
Under current law, a student without special needs coming from a public school would be eligible for a voucher of about $5,600 a year. That actually is more than the state now provides in aid to the district had the student remained in school.
The final version of the bill decreases that basic voucher to $4,400.
Worsley said he tried to get a “means test” which would have narrowed the eligibility to the most needy but found he could not get support for that. What he did manage to secure is a provision that provides a 10 percent boost in the voucher for students coming from homes where family income is less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level, a figure that currently equals $60,750 for a family of four.
There also is, for the first time ever, some public accountability for whether those vouchers actually result in better educational outcome.
Any student in grades 3 through 12 is required to annually take either a nationally recognized or state-approved assessment that assesses reading and math. While individual results are reported to the parents, any school that accepts at least 50 students who are using vouchers to pay for tuition must also post the aggregate test scores of all students, voucher and not, in that each grade.
So the only “accountability” is on student testing. You will note that there is no financial accountability requirements for private and parochial schools receiving public tax dollars, or student tuition organizations. We can’t have that. “Free enterprise” means that private businesses are free to rip off the government (and taxpayers) to enrich themselves. Just ask senate president Steve Yarbrough how he has enriched himself by enacting legislation to privatize public education. These guys are shameless.
UPDATE: “Lawmakers expanded the Empowerment Scholarship program, but it will be difficult, if not impossible, to track the increased spending and any improvement in student performance.” Why Arizona officials don’t know which private schools benefit from expanding voucher program.
Laurie Roberts of The Republic writes Already talk of reneging on voucher deal?:
Well, that didn’t take long.
The ink wasn’t even dry on the state’s new voucher law – the one that had to be capped in order to get enough votes to pass – when talk began about eliminating the cap.
Sen. Bob Worsley, the all-important 16th Senate vote, said capping the program was key to getting his support for Senate Bill 1431. The bill, as passed, would allow about 30,000 kids to get vouchers by 2022.
Within minutes of Gov. Doug Ducey signing the bill Thursday evening, Darcy Olsen, CEO of the Goldwater Institute, was reassuring supporters that the cap won’t stand.
“Fifty years in the making, and tonight we closed the deal!” she wrote, in an email to supporters. “Universal education savings accounts. There is a cap at 5,000 new kids per year; we will get it lifted. Thank you for the years of support that have made this victory possible.”
She probably will. The Goldwater Institute holds big sway with Ducey and Republican legislators, most of whom were never sold on the cap in the first place.
Of course, everybody – other than Worsley and the moderate Republicans who flipped to support the bill (Regina Cobb of Kingman, Maria Syms of Paradise Valley and Drew John of Safford) – knew that cap was there only to get their votes.
But how brazen to brag about how it’s coming off on the very night the foursome sold out the public schools?
Just like all those educators who sold out public education last year by going along with Governor Ducey’s Prop. 123. Educators were warned never to trust these people, that they never negotiate in good faith, and that they would screw you again the first chance they got. They just did, and they are going to screw you again.
There is no more negotiating with Tea-Publicans or hoping for a mythical moderate Republican to save you. They will lie to your face and stab you in the back. Educators cannot endorse or support Tea-Publican candidates for office in the misguided hope that they will somehow support you any longer. What more evidence do you need that this desperate hope does not work?
If Arizonans want to disempower the “Kochtopus,” voters have to vote Tea-Publicans out of office en masse on the ballot. Defeating “Koch-bot” Gov. Doug Ducey is your primary objective.
This will not be easy to accomplish because of the unlimited supply of dark money from the “Kochtopus” network in the state of Maricopa. They will do whatever it takes to protect their investment and to maintain their stranglehold on the state of Arizona.
But ending the corruption in Arizona government has to begin somewhere.
Ducey is stacking all of the courts , appointing them to be used as short stops. When someone screwed over by an agency, and they appeal he has them lined up to rule against . Many objections brought up and none of the points responded to , just deny.
The entire state is turning cult , the Koch brothers boy who brought it to AZ Sean Noble to the judges , who’s background is mission creeps . They certainly do not want their cult members attending public school. They love to control their thinking , and make money off of the students. Lesko is a discrace !
“They certainly do not want their cult members attending public school. They love to control their thinking , and make money off of the students.”
Yep. The GOP is on record again and again as being against critical thinking, they say it leads to questioning authority.
“The GOP is on record again and again as being against critical thinking, they say it leads to questioning authority.”
“They” say no such thing. You made that up on the spot for consumption by liberals lacking critical thinking skills and who are no doubt the product of the public education system you are supposedly defending.
There were two or three Republican legislators who allegedly voted for the mess because of the “compromise ” cap and “accountability”. I guess that was the short term rationale to either themselves or to commenting constituents to look bi-partisan. I guess they forgot to check with their corporate masters at Goldwater for their real orders.
“Corporate masters” – ;o) – I love it when you libs try to demonize the opposition with clever language and dismissive language. It sounds silly when you say it and it is always good for chuckle.
The Goldwater was absolutely worthless in helping a citizen against the board of nursing (corruption ) a bunch of double talk. They are in bed with them , sinful !!!!
All this hyperventilating over the Goldwater Institute doing their mission? Advocating for free markets?
And, what are you defending? An institution which oppresses almost every poor and minority student in this country, which holds them far below their innate ability to achieve.
Go ahead and make this next election about school choice. See what the result is. Almost 40% of our students are not attending their neighborhood schools. See how far that gets you with the Catholics, many who know that district schools were explicitly designed to exclude them right from the start back in the early 1800’s.
You keep claiming that there’s some conspiratorial institution in public education striving to ‘oppress almost every poor and minority student in this country’.
When you were sitting on your district’s school board, where did you think these forces were? Did you think the teachers were the ones systematically attacking the students? The principals? Yourself? Do you think the teachers are working in concert to systematically deny education based on race? Or is it that teachers just are having to work extra jobs to make ends meet, are being constantly bombarded with mismanagement from the legislature (yes, I’ll cede the argument that there’s a problem with micromanagement in education), don’t have the resources they need, and are having to waste valuable instructional time with an increasing battery of standardized testing in the name of ‘accountability’, which makes students hate schooling and rebel against the system? I’ve yet to hear you give a straight answer to those questions.
Its not conspiratorial or a conspiracy, it is ingrained culture. When you are part of a 215 year old culture, it is almost impossible to know what you don’t know. This is because what you do know was part of your life for 14 to 20 years. This effect is more pronounced in that this system resulted in success for most policy makers. Why change what produced the beautiful you?
So, we continuously replicate a 200 year old hay wagon and through a vast array of techniques constrain it to be the exact same way it was 200 years ago.
What other aspect of life remains the same as 200 years ago?
The district is the fundamental structure which prevents education from evolving to something that would perform better for the poor and minorities.
Suppose that I gave you the assignment to design an education system completely run by students, without any adults at all. What would be the fundamental scientific principles that you would have to abide by to make it work? How would you go about making it stable? How long would it take before you could remove all adults from the system? What would happen to the pay of the adults as you transitioned from one system to the other?
Has there ever been such a school system and what were its performance specs? What happened to it? What prevents it from being brought back to life?
I am looking at two distributions of academic achievement, one for 8th graders and one for 3rd graders. The achievement is scaled so I can directly compare them.
30% of 3rd graders outperform 50% of 8th graders. That’s how unproductive our system is. Education culture has developed an entire language for obscuring its performance.
The upper tail of 8th grade stretches 90 points ahead but the mode barely moves 20 points from 3rd to 8th grade. Probably what a student could gain running wild in the streets.
And why do you think that is?
How much of this is because a lot of parents don’t care enough or have been locked up due to broken-windows policing, a lot of children (as much as a quarter) are chronically food-insecure, the better-talented teachers are fleeing the state to neighboring states where the pay is better?
Also, I think it’s very ironic (and yes, I have noticed) that you are in one breath talking about how competition is doing so much good and how Arizona schools are performing so well for the students based on your NAEP data, but on the other hand, here you are telling me that Arizona schools are doing so poorly.
But, to the extent that you are genuinely asking my opinion about how I would change the educational system – less homework in elementary school, more recess and lightly-structured learning & play, especially in our elementary schools, fewer testing batteries every year in the name of ‘assessing performance’, and finding ways to get students excited about learning, instead of sitting down and shutting up for hours per day. Bring back the arts, music, and science classes instead of diverting more and more time to math & reading because districts are so scared about failing the next state-mandated exams.
That’s what I would like to see – I think there would be positive results. I think education is doing worse in part because it has a sort of quantum mechanics issue – the process of measuring results and constantly assessing changes the outcomes, generally for the worse.
Why is the performance structure so dismal? Because the traditional classroom violates every possible principal of maximum long term memory formation.
You want maximum intense positive interdependence to drive performance. Yet, the traditional classroom places every student in a state of negative interdependence with every other student.
You want a culture of academic performance, a culture where students gain status as they increase their academic achievement. Yet the typical student of color and poverty is part of a culture of negative performance, they gain status as they act to disrupt and destroy the performance of the traditional classroom.
We profess to be dedicated to learning, yet over 90% of our measurements measure things that are short term memories and will soon fade away.
To create a successful culture, you need to drench these kids in success. Yet, audit the daily results from our current school system and you will see that kids of color and kids from poverty experience failure on a ratio of 2 to 1 or higher when 3 successes for every failure is the tipping point between progress and failure.
Horrifyingly, some students have possibly never experienced a single success in mathematics. Their behavior is akin to someone who has experienced electroshock experiments. They live in fear of humiliation, so the culture of nonperformance protects them emotionally. But, under it all, they crave success like you can’t believe.
Is it any surprise that with 15 waking hours in the day, these kids only spend 4 minutes reading and doing math?
My first year, my students averaged 10 minutes a day of math work, actual problem solving, not class time. That produced academic gains 40% higher than statewide averages. So far this year, 39 minutes per day. Next year, I hope to get 60 minutes per day.
Being number one as a state is not any great badge of achievement but comparatively, at least it is a start.
Free markets paid for with tax money. Hypocrisy enunciated.
“Free markets paid for with tax money”!!!!!
Frances Perkins, using just seven words, described the philosophy of the GOP perfectly.
Cheap words conveying untruth.
Districts are and were instruments of bigotry, racism and oppression right from the beginning.
Read Diane Ravitch’s books. She ought to and if you are going to tout her, you should too.
The left leaning Urban Institute just ranked Arizona schools 13th in the nation. Good piece of scholarship. The only one that doesn’t hold our demographics against us.
That ranking was clearly not delivered by money – it was delivered by free markets. The quality of public education is going up in Arizona while it is going down in the rest of the nation.
What are you going to do when we rise to first?
Keep screaming. Some people will listen. I doubt the voters will.
This protection of Maricopa County and Duchey trinkles up into federal courts when a citizen tries to hold this oligarchy accountable as to the law ….it appears this stranglehold will remain intact for a very long time as AZ acts as a rogue entity ignoring facts , logic, law, evidence and statistics putting their agenda before any public good! Oh…follow the money on up!