Letters: DeVos failing public schools

NEIFPE member Kathy Candioto sent this letter to the editor about Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

DeVos failing public schools

Published: January 12, 2020

I challenge anyone to name something positive that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has done for public education.

A longtime Republican donor from Michigan (whose family's worth is $5.4 billion), Devos got off to a rough start when her 2017 Senate confirmation hinged on a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence. The hearings revealed her amazing lack of knowledge on education law and policy.

DeVos attended private schools, as did her children. Caring little about public schools, she is strong advocate for vouchers and charters. It is shameful that Cabinet member DeVos should be held in contempt of court and her department fined $100,000. (October, 2019).

Public school supporters look forward to the end of DeVos' tenure in 2020. DeVos has been a complete failure to our public school teachers and students.

Kathy Candioto

Fort Wayne

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Letters: Private school students have other options

NEIFPE member Kathy Candioto sent this letter to the editor. In it she discusses  Indiana's voucher program and the "choice" private schools have to accept or reject students.

Private school students have other options

Published: February 19, 2018

I am writing to respond to “Choice Scholarships give Hoosier kids a future” (Feb. 7). Reyna Rodriguez, a Bishop Luers graduate, supports the scholarship/voucher program. Rodriguez, who used voucher money to complete her private school education, wrote to object to an op-ed written by Phyllis Bush (Jan. 22).

Bush ended her piece (supporting public schools and objecting to vouchers) with a rhetorical question: “Whose choice is it, anyway?” Rodriguez insists choosing Luers was her personal decision but, in truth, the voucher school itself has the choice. If Rodriguez had had a disciplinary record or was a child with difficult learning or physical needs, Luers might not have accepted her. The private school has the choice. But every public high school in Allen County would, by law, accept this student and do its best to accommodate her needs.

In 2015-16, Bishop Luers used $1,626,778 in vouchers or choice scholarship awards. This money, taxpayer funds, was taken directly from the public school fund of the state budget.

In 2016-17, $146 million was spent on school vouchers across the state. This was money meant for public schools but moved, instead, to private schools.

In Allen County, 97 percent of schools receiving voucher funds are religious schools.

Students like Rodriguez have various paths available to fund their private education. Probably the best way would be through a state-sponsored program called the Scholarship Granting Organization, also referred to as the Tax Credit Scholarship. Enacted in 2009, this program awards a donor 50 percent of his donation as an Indiana State Tax Credit. And, there is no limit on the amount of the donor's gift. A graduate of Luers could donate to the organization and help give the gift of a private religious education to a prospective student.

Bush and I, along with educators, parents and grandparents across the state, support public schools that accept all students. We object to taxpayer money funding private and religious schools. We are concerned about the depletion of the public school fund, which continues to lose more money each year to vouchers. As retired public school educators, we are committed to saving public dollars for public schools.

Kathy Candioto

Fort Wayne

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Letters: Scrutiny welcome as school funds depleted

NEIFPE member Kathy Candioto sent this letter to the editor. In it she discusses the cost of Indiana's voucher program.

Scrutiny welcome as school funds depleted

Published: July 22, 2017

I am writing to comment on the July 10 letter “JG's anti-voucher bias is getting tiresome” from Bill Dotterweich.

Dotterweich makes this comment at the end of his letter: “... the JG is just a mouthpiece of the teachers' union.”

Rather than a mouthpiece for any union, the JG is a strong supporter of Indiana's public schools. For this support, I am very grateful. While private schools are welcome and needed in our state, public schools, open to all, are the very cornerstone of our democracy. But public schools are being harmed by the school choice program, and the JG is making readers aware of this damage.

Between 2013 and 2016, Indiana's Education Fund has awarded $330,548,811 to private schools across the state through the school choice program or vouchers. In Allen County, during the same time period, $55,787,467 was given to 36 private (all parochial) schools.

This school choice money was diverted from the state's education pot. This is funding that should have gone to public schools if not for vouchers or school choice.

Indiana has the largest voucher expansion program in the country. While the program continues to grow, many of us, including editors at The Journal Gazette, want the public to understand the loss of funds to public schools. Perhaps we should step back and assess the school choice program. Do we want to continue on this path without careful analysis of what the program is doing to public education in Indiana?

Kathy Candioto

Fort Wayne

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Response to Friedman Foundation

by Kathy Candioto

On May 19, I attended the School Choice meeting sponsored by the Friedman Foundation. The event was held in downtown Ft. Wayne. Representatives of the Foundation presented the same ideas offered in the July 14 op-ed piece, The Choice is Clear. Numerous glossy booklets filled with the goals of the School Choice Foundation were available to the attendees of the meeting.

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was a well-known supporter of free-market economics. Early on, Friedman called for market solutions to just about everything including education. This was the beginning of his idea for school choice. Friedman said,” Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice and private initiatives – the building blocks of success throughout our society.”

As a public school supporter, I cannot agree with Friedman or the Foundation for School Choice. I cannot support tax dollars going to school vouchers and private schools. At the May 19 meeting, I reminded presenters that, in Indiana, and very specifically FWCS, money used for vouchers is money robbed from public schools. Since the inception of the Indiana voucher program in 2011, the number of vouchers used for private schools has grown by 30,000 and will only INCREASE since there is no CAP on their availability. FWCS alone has suffered a loss of $19 million since 2011. We have just one “education pot” in our state. From that pot, legislators take BOTH public school and voucher funds.

The folks at the Friedman Foundation have the money and the time to spread the word on School Choice. Indiana legislators must call for a year’s moratorium on vouchers and take a hard look at what harm School Choice is doing and will continue to do to our public schools. Perhaps they will find that a cap should be restored to voucher availability at the very least. Legislators want to do research on the effectiveness of proposed statewide pre-K policy. Why not do some research on the effect of school choice which has already diverted $115 million from public school funds. Strong PUBLIC schools reflect an education-minded community.

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Letters: Actions belie pledge for all children

NEIFPE member Kathy Candioto sent this letter to the editor in November. In it she questions the motives for the creation of the Center for Education and Career Innovation.

Actions belie pledge for all children

Published: November 25, 2013 3:00 a.m.

Gov. Mike Pence (Nov. 15) states that he created the Center for Education and Career Innovation to consolidate the education and workforce responsibilities of the governor. I believe this new agency with its $5 million budget was created only to usurp the power of the duly elected Glenda Ritz, superintendent of public instruction.

As co-director of this new agency, Pence appointed Claire Fidian Green, former director of the Indiana Charter School Board. Green attended private schools throughout elementary and high school. She graduated from Brown University with a degree in political science and Russian studies. She worked as a management consultant, financial analyst and grants officer.

So where is her public school experience? Where is her teaching experience?

She never managed a class of rambunctious first graders or unruly and bored eighth graders; she never wrote a lesson plan, never conducted a parent-teacher conference, and never tried to reach even the slowest learner in a class of 25+ students. So why then is Green advising the governor on educational issues?

Public schools and public schoolchildren are not the primary focus of Green or the governor. Green and the governor are both supporters of school choice and taxpayer-funded vouchers to be used in private schools.

With these facts before us, we supporters of public schools and of Ritz cannot believe that the governor has “a sincere desire to work on behalf of all the children of Indiana.”

KATHY CANDIOTO Fort Wayne