Vic's Statehouse Notes #309 - Jan. 17, 2018

Dear Friends,
 
Thank you for the messages you sent to legislators opposing "Education Savings Accounts"!
 
Your messages of opposition have apparently stalled this radical proposal before it got off the ground in the short session.
 
The deadlines for filing bills in the House and Senate have come and gone, and Senator Raatz never filed his "Education Savings Accounts" bill for special education students that he filed in 2016 and 2017.
 
Representative Lucas never filed his "Education Savings Accounts" bill for all students as he did in the budget session in 2017. 
 
Representative Tim Brown, the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, filed an ESA bill for all students in 2016, but not in 2018.
 
It's good news for now, but remember the concept of "Education Savings Accounts" because they could show up as an amendment to another bill or as a new bill next year in the budget session to try to privatize our public schools.
 
A Radical Proposal
 
"Education Savings Accounts" is truly a radical proposal.  With the support of wealthy backers who donate heavily to legislators, it has been passed in six states:  Florida, Tennessee, Nevada, Arizona, Mississippi and North Carolina.  It would:
 

• give approximately $6000 per student directly to parents on a debit card, or up to $15000 for special education students, allowing parents to spend the education money on their child unsupervised and unaudited.
• subtract that money away from the funds that normally go to the local school district, a "foot in the door" to the real intent espoused by Milton Friedman of undermining public education itself.  ESAs subvert the very concept of schooling.
• require parents to provide a bare minimum education in "reading, grammar, mathematics, social studies and science" (no art, no music, no health, no physical education, no vocational courses) with no standards and no obligation for annual testing or public accountability.
• fund home schools for the first time and remove all income limits in order to give public money to high income parents of special education and Section 504 students, leading to an estimated cost of up to $206 million according to a Legislative Services Agency fiscal note for the 2017 version of the bill.
• not provide any fraud detection department nor would it define penalties for parents who commit fraud nor would it exclude parents with past records of crime or neglect or abuse or welfare fraud or addiction.

This plan to bring "Education Savings Accounts" to Indiana must not stand.
 
During the past fall, this plan appeared to be moving. The concept got "baked in" to the constituent surveys Republican legislators send out before the session, surveys that are printed far in advance of the session. Then no bill was filed.
 
Thank you for your vigilance. Stay alert to amendments to bills this session and to bills next year that would undermine our public schools with "Education Savings Accounts."  For now, no bill on this topic has been filed as was done in the previous two sessions.
 
Thank you for actively supporting public education in Indiana!
 
Best wishes,
 
Vic Smith      [email protected]

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