Matt Albright with the Delaware News Journal unveiled the Delaware Republican Senate’s Poverty Plan before it was even presented to Delaware lawmakers. Included in these 11 potential ideas are two items that are highly disdained by advocates for public education: Social Impact Bonds and school vouchers.
As if we haven’t learned enough from the problems with corporations dipping into education waters, the Delaware GOP wants Social Impact Bonds, or “Pay For Success” programs in Delaware. I wrote about how Delaware opened the door for Social Impact Bonds last month. This is extremely dangerous for any public education system. Having corporations get the ability to earn a profit from student measures is a potential minefield. If a goal, for example, is to have 95% of students in a pre-school not get special education in the elementary school system based on early interventions in reading, how do we know the results won’t be pushed towards that goal regardless of what a student actually needs? As well, for some students, a disability may not manifest until a later age. We have seen how Goldman Sachs attempted this in another state with very controversial results. Social Impact Bonds have no place in K-12 education. Students should not be fodder for corporate investment.
Also included in the poverty plan is a form of school vouchers called “Scholarship Tax Credits”. This latest round of tax credits in Delaware would give additional tax credit to those who donate to non-profits for the purpose of scholarships to low-income students to attend private schools. This is just another way of getting a school voucher system going. If this point were brought into legislation, it would recognize school vouchers as an additional education funding mechanism in Delaware. This is something Governor Markell opposes on any level. This is one of those rare areas where the two of us are in agreement. Vouchers would further deplete traditional school districts of funding when they are already losing a great deal of local and state funding to charter schools and other choice schools.
There are some other Easter eggs in this plan that concern me. The plan calls for removing some restrictions from federal grants aimed at fighting poverty. Instead of allocations to certain areas, the Delaware GOP wants those restrictions lifted. This could result in the Delaware Department of Education wanting funds to go towards more “focus” or “priority” schools. While most can agree schools with high concentrations of poverty certainly need more money, once the Delaware DOE gets involved, there is no guarantee those funds would make it into the classroom. We saw that happen with Race To The Top funds where the DOE got half of the $119 million the state won. Instead of actually making a difference with that money, most of it went to outside vendors whose reports made Delaware schools look bad and our State Longitudinal Data System, which makes it possible for corporate education reformers to get student data and use it to their advantage.
The part of the plan that also concerns me is an idea concerning more people entering the workforce as an apprentice. The article in the News Journal specifically mentions Zip Code Wilmington, which is run by Ben DuPont. The DuPont family is a huge influence on the Delaware GOP. They are also a huge influence on Delaware charter schools. They run the Longwood Foundation which has donated millions of dollars to Delaware charter schools. This is just more of the same. Governor Markell’s “Pathways to Prosperity” program is clearly designed to track students into certain career paths. I covered a great deal of this master plan a couple weeks ago and I have to wonder how much of it is included in this poverty agenda. I know, many will assume I am looking for things that don’t exist. They said the same thing when I said the Smarter Balanced Assessment will replace the SAT. While it was the opposite, the SAT became more like the Smarter Balanced Assessment when the College Board retooled the SAT to align with Common Core.
One glaring omission about a whole agenda to lift folks out of poverty is no mention of increased wages. The Delaware GOP consistently, as a majority of their party, fights against minimum wage increases. That should be the first step to decreasing poverty. Families can’t survive on the minimum wage. It just isn’t possible. While the plan concedes not all members of the GOP Delaware Senate agree on all of these ideas, it opens the door to Delaware Democrats who may actually want to see programs like Social Impact Bonds in Delaware. Like everything in Delaware, it will come down to who is involved with any type of task forces or committees if this gets to that point.
To read the entire plan, see below:
The Season Of Myths 