Voucher Hounds

   Betsy DeVos, the new Secretary of Education at the U.S. Department of Education, a true voucher hound (or voucher wolf, according to A View from the Edge) her State Voucher Hounds working overtime. A voucher is a free ticket which diverts taxpayer money away from public schools to pay for private education or homeschool costs for parents of qualifying students. "Qualifying students" would be students whose parents are wealthy. The typical private school tuition is usually $10,000 to $20,000, while the typical voucher is usually worth only about $5,000. Qualifying students, therefore, would be those students whose parents can afford the $5,000 to $15,000 difference in the amount of the voucher and the actual tuition. Those parents would probably be classified as wealthy.
   Senate Bill 560 by Senator Rob Standridge is due to be heard at 9 a.m. Monday at the Senate Education Committee. Under Senate Bill 560, qualifying parents (wealthy) will be eligible to receive a voucher for up to 90 percent of state aid funding that would normally go to a public school student. The voucher recipient (wealthy parent) would then be able to use state tax dollars to pay for private, virtual, homeschool, and other educational costs such as tutoring, curriculum, and field trips. But hey, who can blame wealthy parents for wanting some of that $20,000 tuition bill to be shaved off?
   The fact of the matter is that vouchers are a funding cut for public schools that educate 90 percent of Oklahoma children plus providing dozens of other negative consequences for our public schools, which can be found here.
   Senator Rob Standridge is a state "voucher hound" for Betsy DeVos. Her American Federation for Children (vouchers) donated several thousand dollars to his re-election campaign this past fall, and now he must return the favor by sponsoring a voucher bill. Many state "voucher hounds" can be found here, but several more are unknown as of now, as the bill hasn't been voted on in committee yet - but will be Monday. The list of senators (16) on the Education Committee can be seen here. Of the sixteen education committee members, twelve might be voucher hounds. Only four may be public school supporters including J.J. Dossett, Eddie Fields, Anastasia Pittman, and Paul Scott, but we will know for sure on Monday, as they all must vote - 'yes' (for vouchers) or 'no' (for public school students). I'm betting that Betsy DeVos has more influence than Oklahoma public schools do, so the bill will pass to a vote of the full senate with flying colors. We certainly have hope it will fail, though.