Low scores don't deter Wis. voucher supporters

[Nessus]

Yeah, trying to buy a service in exchange for money. How illiberal.

Is it somehow morally superior when it is done with money rather than dachas?

[Loki]

Does it matter?

[Nessus]

It was your question?

[Loki]

By "money", I was referring to any method of payment.

[Nessus]

Payment as free speech?

[Loki]

I don't get what you're getting at. My point was that it was a fair transaction that didn't infringe on anyone's rights. What exactly is the problem? If either side thought it was a bad deal, it was free to refuse it.

[Nessus]

I don't get what you're getting at. My point was that it was a fair transaction that didn't infringe on anyone's rights. What exactly is the problem? If either side thought it was a bad deal, it was free to refuse it.

I just have a thing about buying legislation.

[Loki]

I just have a thing about buying legislation.

We're talking about the guy gave a college money. What does that have to do with legislation?

[Nessus]

Oh, sorry. I thought we were discussing the Koch brothers.

[Loki]

The Koch brothers gave the donations to the colleges...Which legislation are you referring to?

[Nessus]

I can't accept that this is being asked in good faith.

[Loki]

Seriously, I can't find any mention of laws. The only mention I see on the last page is them giving money to some universities.

[Nessus]

Are you saying you don't know who they are?

[Loki]

No, the article on the last page is the first time I've heard of them...Are they the right-wing bogeyman for the left?

[Dreadnaught]

Going back to school choice, here we have something I referenced earlier in the thread. In this case, Orthodox and Hasidic Jews have become a significant portion of a particular school district but don't send their kids to public schools. Yet they still pay taxes for the public schools. Sick of this, they are banding-together and taking over the school board to basically dismantle the public school system.

This is a pretty dick move on their part. Then again, who wants to pay for an education that they and their neighbors mostly don't benefit from?

But it's clear that everyone loses here: the religious people who are double-paying for education and the public school kids who are having their educational system dismantled and have no other choices. Vouchers would make this particular situation much more of a win-win for everyone involved.

May 16, 2011

Schools Fight Gets Heated
By SUMATHI REDDY

SPRING VALLEY—The large Orthodox Jewish community here sends most of its children to private schools but took control of the public school district six years ago.

Now, there's a heated school board election pitting three Orthodox Jewish candidates against so-called "public school candidates," who have or had children in the school system.

Critics say the current school board has favored private schools, closing two public schools and arranging for them to be used by yeshivas, or private Jewish schools.

Members of the Orthodox Jewish community say the board is acting appropriately and trying to make sure that the needs of children attending private school aren't ignored.

At a Parent Teacher Association candidate's forum last week, the only candidates that showed up were public school candidates. None of their opponents made an appearance.

It was the same story at an NAACP candidate's forum earlier this month. The Orthodox candidates complain they never received an invitation.

"There has been a lot of division, unfortunately," said Kim Foskew, president of the Parent Teacher Association Council. "I wish there weren't. People are getting angry. It's just the culmination of everything and it has built up a lot of animosity."

Similar power struggles have taken place in communities with large Orthodox populations, such as Lawrence, Long Island, and Lakewood, N.J. But in the East Ramapo district, residents say the conflict has reached the breaking point. Both the Anti-Defamation League and the New York Civil Liberties Union have written letters to school officials expressing concerns about various issues in the district.

Situated about 35 miles northwest of New York City, the East Ramapo district faces an unusual situation. Its public student population of roughly 8,100 is dwarfed by a private student population of about 20,000. The majority of private students are educated in yeshivas.

For years the Orthodox community—migrating to Rockland from Brooklyn—held a couple of seats on the nine-member board. But as the private student population grew, they began contesting more seats.

In 2005, Orthodox members became the majority on the East Ramapo school board. In a subsequent election the first Hasidic was elected to the board. Since then, the Hasidim have become the majority.

Critics claim that the school board has ignored the needs of a student population that is about 90% minority, with large Haitian and Latino populations. More than 60% of the district's public students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch last year.

One of the closed schools was leased to two yeshivas; the other was slated to be sold to a yeshiva. The sale is on hold pending a review of a complaint filed by Steve White, an activist heading up the campaigns of the public school candidates, to state officials, alleging that the sale price was undervalued.

Parents critical of the board also allege that the board has improperly placed Orthodox Jewish special education students in private and other public schools. A state education audit last year found that the district was placing students with disabilities in private schools when spots were available in public schools.

The local branch of the NAACP filed a complaint with the federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights alleging discrimination for special education placements, among other things, which is currently under investigation.

Some parents and activists were further angered when the board replaced its long-time local attorney with a Long Island attorney who charges a higher hourly rate and has represented an Orthodox-controlled board in Long Island where he helped with similar legal challenges regarding school closures and special education.

Samuel Heilman, a professor of Jewish Studies at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, said Hasidic and Orthodox populations, such as in Ramapo, have many internal divisions and sects. But when it comes securing more resources for their community, they will rally together.

"They vote as a bloc," said Mr. Heilman. "They vote based on who is going to provide them with services. They have a very strong grass-roots network and everybody knows who they have to vote for."

Aron Wieder has been leading the Orthodox faction of the school board since his election three years ago. Mr. Wieder abruptly decided not to seek re-election.

At a "Kosher on the Go" Shell gas station in Monsey last week two men speaking in Yiddish asked Mr. Wieder why he wasn't running.

Mr. Wieder explains that he became a lightning rod of controversy so he decided not to run. But he remains concerned that the Orthodox could lose their majority. Others in his community share his concern. They say that the board should be equally concerned with both public and private students.

"I think the purpose of the school board is to make sure that all kids get an education," said Shaya Green, an Orthodox Jew from Monsey who has four children in private school. "All kids include private school kids. And public school kids. There's very little that we get back from the district. I'm very worried that if they get in they will take that all way."

The district pays for the transportation for private school students and textbooks, as mandated by state law, as well as the education of all special needs students.

Many in the Orthodox and Hasidic communities defend the placement of special needs students in schools outside of the district. "Not every child in the Hasidic community is the right fit and the comfortable fit to be put into a public school class," said Yehuda Weissmandl, a Hasidic Jew who is running for the school board. "And that is something that needs to be understood and respected."

But the opposition candidates, such as Peggy Hatton, who lost a campaign in 2009, say the cultural misunderstandings go the other way, too.

"The people who are currently running the school board do not understand the culture of the children who attend the public schools and they don't quite frankly have skin in the game," said Ms. Hatton. "Why do they want to be a part of the school board to begin with?"

Write to Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...278029730.html

[Illusions]

But it's clear that everyone loses here: the religious people who are double-paying for education and the public school kids who are having their educational system dismantled and have no other choices. Vouchers would make this particular situation much more of a win-win for everyone involved.

I'm sorry but if I was brought up with a devoutly religious education and this was allowed to occur without any benefit to at least some other more fortunate person, I would not consider this "win-win". I'd consider this "lose-lose" as I'd have been deprived of a proper education and a chance at a functional and beneficial life toward a whole society, and somebody else would have been deprived of the taxes my parents paid towards that school district.

[Nessus]

No, the article on the last page is the first time I've heard of them...Are they the right-wing bogeyman for the left?

Ohh! Okay, I'm sorry, I really did think you'd have heard of it. A lot of the turmoil around governor Walker was how he's basically serving the Koch brothers in exchange of his state. Look it up, it's good stuff. (Or left-wing whining about bogey-men, in your narrative, I suppose) And that's just the tip of a very depressing ice berg.

[Dreadnaught]

I'm sorry but if I was brought up with a devoutly religious education and this was allowed to occur without any benefit to at least some other more fortunate person, I would not consider this "win-win". I'd consider this "lose-lose" as I'd have been deprived of a proper education and a chance at a functional and beneficial life toward a whole society, and somebody else would have been deprived of the taxes my parents paid towards that school district.

How does vouchers deprive anyone of an education or the benefits of their taxes in this case? It's a more even distribution of tax money that doesn't lead to voting blocs seizing control of a school district in the name of self-interest.

[GGT]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...demic-freedom/

In contrast, the invocation of academic freedom is certainly to the point in my second example, the controversy at Florida State University over a gift given to the economics department in 2008 by a foundation funded by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers. The gift was given to support the creation of two new appointments. There’s nothing untoward about that; it is routine for corporations and foundations to underwrite or augment the funding of faculty appointments. (At Johns Hopkins I held a Kenan chair the support for which came from an oil fortune.) Sometimes the funds are provided without specifying a subject or a discipline; sometimes the gift is more targeted. This gift was very targeted; it was to support the teaching of free-market, anti-regulatory economics.

That’s where the trouble begins. Is the foundation funding the study of free-market economics — a perfectly respectable academic subject — or is it mandating that free-market economics be promoted in the classroom? Is it a gift intended to stimulate research the conclusions of which can not be known in advance, or is it a gift intended to amplify a conclusion — free-market economics is good; regulation is bad — the philanthropists have already reached and want to broadcast using Florida State University as a megaphone? If it is the second, Florida State University courts the danger the doctrine of academic freedom was designed to avoid (see the 1915 statement of the then fledgling AAUP), the danger of allowing an outside constituency to take control of academic proceedings and dictate academic decisions.

Evidence that a line may have been crossed is provided by the contract between the foundation and the university. Foundation representatives serve on the search committee and have the power to veto candidates. If the selected professors fail to perform in a manner the foundations approves, it will withdraw its support. This of course means that the foundation in effect monitors and assesses academic performance. On the other side, the faculty has the decisive voice in making appointments; it need not accept the candidates the foundation favors, and in fact the two who were finally hired were not on the foundation’s preferred list, although we can presume the foundation did not find them objectionable.

In a telephone conversation with me, FSU President Eric J. Barron (who was not in office when this all went down) explained that while the foundation’s representatives could have exercised a veto, it never came to that. He added that if the new faculty members ever failed to meet the foundation’s expectations and its gift was withdrawn, the university would step in and provide the necessary support. He acknowledged that these arrangements might make people nervous — some administration members expressed reservations in 2008 and changes were made to the contract — but he insisted that, despite press characterizations of the situation, FSU had not sold its soul. (I am not a stranger to such situations. My first assignment as a dean at the University of Illinois at Chicago was to finalize the details of a gift given to the university for the funding of a Catholic Studies program. Many of the issues that arose at FSU arose at UIC and were negotiated.)

Barron makes a reasonable case but it is undercut by the words of David Rasmussen, dean of the College of Social Science at FSU. Rasmussen is either tone deaf or disingenuous. His account of the affair is anodyne: “The Economics department says here are the two people we really like, goes to the advisory board and says, will you approve these two people, and they say yes.”

In short, what’s the problem? The problem is that the sequence unfolds under the threat of an adverse action by a non-academic entity. Rasmussen says he is “sure some faculty will say this is not exactly consistent with their view of academic freedom.” The implication is that “their view” is a minority view or an over-fastidious view, but the view that university hiring and firing procedures shouldn’t dance to the tune of an external constituency is absolutely mainstream and is the core of what academic freedom stands for.

Rasmussen’s most egregious comments concern another matter. BB&T, the bank holding company, funds an ethic course on the condition that Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” be required reading. (That might constitute cruel and unusual punishment.) The reasoning, offered by BB&T representative John Allison, is that “most universities are dominated by liberal professors.” (I have argued elsewhere that a scholar’s political views and his or her disciplinary views are independent variables.) Rasmussen thinks this is just fine. “If somebody says, ‘We’re willing to help support your students and faculty by giving you money, but we’d like you to read this book,’ that doesn’t strike me as a big sin.” What would be a big sin, he continues, “is saying that certain ideas cannot be discussed.” No, the sin is to insist that a certain idea be discussed whether or not it has made its academic way because a few disappointed outsiders are willing to spend big bucks to get it inside. If, in the judgment of an instructor, “Atlas Shrugged” will contribute to a student’s understanding of a course’s subject, there is every reason to assign it. But if assigning “Atlas Shrugged” is the price for the receiving of monies and the university pays that price, it has indeed sold its soul.

The Northwestern and FSU examples help us to understand when academic freedom issues legitimately arise. They arise when the university either allows its professors to appropriate the classroom for non-academic purposes, as some think John Michael Bailey did, or allows itself to become the wholly owned subsidiary of another enterprise, as FSU may have done.

There are of course other contexts in which academic freedom is at stake, but the awarding of an honoray degree to Tony Kushner or anyone else isn’t one of them. You needn’t take my word for it. Give yourself the pleasure of reading two learned but entirely accessible books — Matthew Finkin’s and Robert Post’s “For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom” (2009) and Rodney Smolla’s “The Constitution Goes to College” (2011).

[Loki]

Ohh! Okay, I'm sorry, I really did think you'd have heard of it. A lot of the turmoil around governor Walker was how he's basically serving the Koch brothers in exchange of his state. Look it up, it's good stuff. (Or left-wing whining about bogey-men, in your narrative, I suppose) And that's just the tip of a very depressing ice berg.

So they get treated by the left the way Soros gets treated by the right?

[LittleFuzzy]

How does vouchers deprive anyone of an education or the benefits of their taxes in this case? It's a more even distribution of tax money that doesn't lead to voting blocs seizing control of a school district in the name of self-interest.

They're actively dismantling the public school system *the one supporting everyone, not just the Orthodox and Hasidic majority plurality there* because they're only interested in the religious instruction of their yeshivas. Their selling off of public schools to become yeshivas makes that clear. Vouchers wouldn't help here. Hell, vouchers in that district would almost certainly be structured in such a way that guarantees they'll run afoul of current jurisprudence, because they would be explicitly for expanding religious instruction. What they're doing there amounts to an attempt at socio-educational ethnic cleansing.

[LittleFuzzy]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...demic-freedom/

This formal de jure veto is certainly unusual and may be unique. More informal de facto approvals/vetos in this sort of funding situation are rather less so and consequently I don't think it matters all that much. Where it would matter is if one of the strings attached to the funding turns out to effectively be a right to dictate the curriculum. That would or at least should be unacceptable.

[GGT]

Ohh! Okay, I'm sorry, I really did think you'd have heard of it. A lot of the turmoil around governor Walker was how he's basically serving the Koch brothers in exchange of his state. Look it up, it's good stuff. (Or left-wing whining about bogey-men, in your narrative, I suppose) And that's just the tip of a very depressing ice berg.

Loki has posted in the "Lobbying" thread, where the Koch brothers' influence was mentioned and linked.

[GGT]

This formal de jure veto is certainly unusual and may be unique. More informal de facto approvals/vetos in this sort of funding situation are rather less so and consequently I don't think it matters all that much. Where it would matter is if one of the strings attached to the funding turns out to effectively be a right to dictate the curriculum. That would or at least should be unacceptable.

Agreed---it's the strings that matter, and if they're attached to marionettes. So far, it sounds like dictating curriculum has already happened.

[Nessus]

So they get treated by the left the way Soros gets treated by the right?

Uh, I wouldn't put it like that, but I don't suppose your Weltanschauung allows for any other interpretation.

[Dreadnaught]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...demic-freedom/

As has been pointed out, this hard veto isn't much different than a soft veto. Will the $60 million grant that George Soros just gave to Bard fund the study of the benefits of low tax rates on all classes of earners?

They're actively dismantling the public school system *the one supporting everyone, not just the Orthodox and Hasidic majority plurality there* because they're only interested in the religious instruction of their yeshivas. Their selling off of public schools to become yeshivas makes that clear. Vouchers wouldn't help here. Hell, vouchers in that district would almost certainly be structured in such a way that guarantees they'll run afoul of current jurisprudence, because they would be explicitly for expanding religious instruction. What they're doing there amounts to an attempt at socio-educational ethnic cleansing.

Arguably, the Yeshivas could be accredited if they incorporated other types of courses. Or a private school could be set-up that would rival the Yeshivas by including both intensive religious study and secular studies that could be applied to the working world.

What's clear is they are getting nothing from the existing public school system, but feel that they can dismantle it because they are paying for it. What they are doing is terrible, but there is an underlying issue here concerning how tax collections are being distributed under the status-quo system.

[GGT]

Feel free to compare and contrast the Soros and Koch monies, and which strings were attached with those funds.

[Dreadnaught]

Feel free to compare the $1.5 million Koch professorship with the $60 million Soros donation.

Yes, we know, the obsessing over the Koch brothers is all the rage now. It took the left a decade to find a corporate bogeyman to match up with the right's irrational fear/hatred of George Soros.

[GGT]

Most people don't care about the name, whether they're left or right, but the extent of power bought. That's why publicly disclosed PAC contributions are scrutinized. Koch brothers haven't limited their "donations" to academic professorships or PAC donations. They also create groups meant to look like small grass roots Libertarian or Tea Party.

If you find proof linking any other billionaire to snarky moves like that, I'll be happy to condemn that. No matter which party they belong to, or which side of center they fall.

[Dreadnaught]

The Koch brothers paying for a $1.5 million professorship is somehow more nefarious and influential than George Soros buying a $60 million international political research and outreach group at Bard?

None of this really has much to do with vouchers BTW.