I saw that Cuccinelli in Virginia released his education plan (pdf) so I thought I’d compare his work to model bills churned out by ALEC, the corporate-owned state law factory. Cuccinelli: Review and reform teaching requirements and establish paths to teacher licensure external to education institutions. Model Law that corporations wrote: Offer teaching credentials to …
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Cuccinelli:
School Choice: provide opportunity scholarships to allow parents to enroll students in the public schools of their choice, or tax credits to enroll in the private schools of their choice. Establish a separate tax credit program and/or scholarship fund specifically for students in failing schools.
Virginia has provisions in its constitution that explicitly bar government aid to “sectarian” schools or institutions, including the so-called Blaine Amendment. The Blaine Amendment was passed as a result of anti-Catholic bigotry in American politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A state constitutional amendment is needed that is narrowly drafted to allow for school choice programs that do not restrict parents’ choices about what is best for each of their children.
In other words, he wants to amend the state constitution to allow taxpayer funding of Catholic schools.
Model law that corporations wrote:
Create or expand taxpayer-funded voucher programs, using bills such as the “Parental Choice Scholarship Act” (introduced in three states). Under many state constitutions, the use of public dollars to fund religious institutions has been rejected but the ALEC Great Schools Tax Credit Act, introduced in ten states in 2013, bypasses state constitutional provisions and offers a form of private school tuition tax credits that funnel taxpayer dollars to private schools with even less public accountability than with regular vouchers.
Cuccinelli:
Additionally, while Virginia technically allows charter schools, any charter school has to be approved by the local school district within the boundaries it would be operating. In 2013, SJ 302,wasintroduced by Senator Mark Obenshain, proposing a constitutional amendment to grant the state Board of Education authority to establish charter schools within the school divisions of the Commonwealth.
Another constitutional amendment! This one gets around elected school boards and lets his hand-picked state board take over schools.
Model law that corporations wrote:
Create an appointed, state-level charter school authorizing board through the Next Generation Charter Schools Act, introduced in seven states, which effectively shields charters from democratic accountability. The legislation “would wrest control from school boards, and likewise from the community that elects those school boards,” Mead says, since it takes away their power to authorize charters in the community.
Terry McAuliffe’s education plan is incredibly vague, so not much to compare there. His website is also cluttered and horrible looking, BTW. I hope he didn’t pay a lot for it.
update on McAuliffe from commenter Van