This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk. Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,
educated educators talking education.
Yes, it is Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk, educated educators talking education,
and swallowed a frog. I think on his first classes in session, Johnny Lupinacci, Jess, what's
happening, my friends?
Hey, it's great, man. I love this new format, listening to the home room, you know, getting
feedback from you listeners. Hey, if you want to drop us a line or give us a question
or, hey, like what we talk about today, you might want to comment on, give us a call, leave
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got full energy, educated educators talking education. Anytime you want to leave us a message,
we'll hit that mailbag and we'll take your question or call on our shows. But Tim, this is
a great Wednesday drop because, man, we've got an amazing guest.
We've got an amazing guest, amazing book, Michigan State's own Josh Cowlin, his book
out right now that is just flying around. He is everywhere too. The fact that we were
able to schedule him, I don't know how we were able to do it because he is at every bookstore
somewhere in America. The private tears, how billionaires created a culture war and sold
school vouchers. I mean, you get into this book and you read it and it's just something
I would encourage you listeners, you're going to love the interview when we get the opportunity
to talk to Josh. But, man, Johnny, when you look in here, whether it's the evidence that,
well, the, the no evidence that, again, anybody listening about the pencils knows we've
been talking about by vouchers and privatization going like, look, the gig is up. There is no
evidence to support vouchers. But, man, what Josh does in this, Johnny, yeah, man, he lays
it out. And so, you know, without any further ado, let's kick it right to this guy because
listener, you're going to learn a lot. Professor of education policy at Michigan State University
with extensive experience in evaluating state and local education programs. He was the founding
director of the education policy innovation collaborative and has been widely published
in scholarly journals, media outlets and policy briefs. His new book, the private tears,
how billionaires created a culture war and sold school vouchers is out now. He's out on the
road doing all kinds of tours. But we are so lucky to have him on busted pencils tonight.
Josh Callan, how are you? My friend, I'm great. How are you guys? Thanks for having me.
Appreciate it. So the book right to it, the private tears, I'm going to throw in the question
just with a little bit of a bio. So you're coming at this just so for people know, you were essentially
a proponent of vouchers in the day. And now you're not necessarily when we look at this,
I know that's oversimplifying it, but just to point out that you originally solve this as a
potential academic gain for students in situations or just clarify that and then we'll get into the book.
I was certainly open minded to the idea that these things might work. I was probably a bit naive
as to sort of some of the history behind these things. Others maybe were onto it a little bit
before I was, but certainly as a trained policy analyst, which was sort of my day job and really
remains that it was my job then as a young researcher, it was my job for as I made my way through
the ranks of sort of research, academic research, profession to go into these situations with an
open mind, see if these policies work, if so for who, if not, why not. And that's kind of how I
came into this debate certainly, at least until roughly about a decade ago when really the evidence turned
pretty horrific. Well, I think that's the part. It's the evidence. And you say your policy analysts
looking at this and kind of coming at this. And finally, though eventually saying like, look,
the evidence isn't there. When you're talking about the evidence, too, for most listeners of
busted pencils, they know vouchers, they know privatization. We've been talking about this,
you know, you said for ourselves for over over 10 years for the podcast and the radio show. So
I think the idea that you're coming on to say the evidence, but, but that really is for the one
part of this to say is that, and this is to me, it's going to be the big talk that we want to kind
of really highlight here is that the argument for vouchers and privatization used to be based
on, quote, an academic rhetoric of improvement. And now today, though, where you really take the
book and take us to the end is that we're not even hiding behind the fact that this has anything to
do with academic achievement gains and helping kids and struggling schools. This has shifted into
truly a culture war and, quote, parents rights. But Josh, how did we get here?
Yeah, so great, great question. So vouchers began as an idea in 1955 when a conservative economist
Milton Friedman first proposed them in the months actually following Brown Peabourg. And there's
some debate among historians about the extent to which Milton Friedman himself was saw his voucher
scheme as a way to avoid the orders on the integration orders under Brown Peabourg. But what isn't
in question is that segregation is certainly leap up down the idea and tried to kind of create
vouchers schemes in the south as a way to avert Brown. It didn't really sort of take off in any sort
whole scale way until the 1990s, the first modern voucher system was introduced in Milwaukee,
small scale in 1990. And it really was at that time much more of a product of the moment that was
in in 1990, which was kind of this conservative push for market driven reforms across the board,
not just in education, use the market to improve social services. This was the era of change
changing welfare, social welfare, fighting against the first attempt to provide universal healthcare
to the Clintons. So vouchers were very much part of that moment at the time. And there's some mildly
positive results. Kids who used vouchers did to from schools, public schools that had been under
resourced and were struggling academically, did see some modest improvements in their outcomes.
But really that lasted very for a very brief period. The last positive study, the last study
to show vouchers helped kids academically is 22 years old. No, and a very small scale. The last
study to show that vouchers improved educational attainment. So high school graduation is 11 years old.
No, since vouchers have scaled up, and what we mean by that is sort of gone from a pilot or a
demonstration phase, a few hundred kids, a few private schools, often decent, relatively
advantage private schools, to the skill that versions statewide, the bigger and the more
recent the voucher scheme, the worse the results have been over the last decade.
Johnny, pick up on that. Yeah, this is a great conversation because to me, you know, we are often
on the show talking about vouchers in the kind of current context without a lot of history for our
listeners about this. And for sure, without a lot of policy analysis, and that's a key
component to having an educated educators, talking education conversation about this.
So Josh, appreciate your work, man. I want to dive into the private tears a bit. Just talk a
little bit about why this book, how it came across your creative ideas as a scholar. Why go this
direction with this book, the private tears? Well, it really is difficult to overstate just how
bad and just how large the negative effects of vouchers were over the last decade.
Now, roughly 70% of kids who used vouchers were already in private school to begin with.
This is really important to know that that data point, most voucher users already in private school
to begin with as held up remarkably well in state after state after state that's pushed vouchers
schemes. And it first really appeared in the literature, the research literature way back in 2007.
But for the kids who do transfer from public to private school over the last decade in these larger
programs that we've seen, we've seen some of the largest negative impacts on student achievement
that we've seen on any any question in the research community whatsoever. And I'm somebody who would
grew up professional in what was called the evidence-based movement in education or bipartisan.
This is the era of George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy coming together on the no child left behind bill.
Now, say what you will about that 22 years in, but it did prioritize transparency,
accountability, and sort of this idea that we were going to use public dollars in the education
space. We were going to see how schools receiving those dollars performed. And that included
vouchers back then. But since those horrific results have come out over the last decade,
24 states have passed voucher schemes, most of those in the last two to three years,
passed or expanded voucher schemes. And all of those new programs are completely devoid of any type
of new accountability, new evaluation, anything like that. And the reason for that is that again,
on the evidence vouchers have really, really harmed academic outcomes for kids.
We can talk a little bit about why that is. There's some very good reasons why these voucher
schemes do cause that academic harm. But the important point that I made in the book, and this is
sort of what I set out to do, is as a researcher, as someone who sort of believes in evidence, wants to
use evidence to make policy better for kids and families, vouchers, the voucher results sort of
stopped these schemes dead in the tracks, at least no later than 2019. It may be even sooner than
that. And yet they're flourishing, or I don't want to say they're flourishing, but they're expanding,
they're spreading. And so the book sets out to ask why is that? And the answer is that sort of
the Trump presidency, the rise of Christian nationalism, really refueled and rescued the voucher
push at a very dangerous time for that movement, as the evidence on academics is coming back in,
the right sort of right-wing turns to these these culture wars to motivate and re-energize
the voucher push, and that's where we are today. In fact, that's the part, too, that really,
really is something here that I think with your book that we really want to talk about specifically,
you know, with the busted pencil listener. What you're saying, Josh, too, is that you have this
re-ignition, this new fervor of which vouchers in the push to privatization. And in fact,
very much largely arguing, too, that there will be no data for comparison of any type of academic
results in any of these new initiatives to put this forward. Not only is it not included, but it's
actually policy-driven, that there won't be any type of an accountability scheme put together to
that. And so, as we're coming to this and looking at in this moment, 2024, we're in a presidential
race. It's the fall with 2000 project 25. All of these things coming forward. I almost wonder
about the conversation about the evidence. And we think we need to make that great point is,
is that look, the evidence isn't there for academic achievement improvement. But now this twist
in a turn for advocates like busted pencils for anybody who's saying for public schools to really
kind of grab hold and grab that faith in public education. How does this new push of elevating
culture wars? To me, they use the culture wars as the reason to have vouchers. It's because I want
to discriminate. I want to be a Christian nationalist. I don't want to know about democracy. I want
to protect and preserve fascism. Damn it. Well, you know, in the 50s, when these schemes were
first proposed, you know, the argument was very over that I'll give you an example that I used
in the book. So in Texas, Texas legislation that was created in the wake of brown using Milton
Friedman's idea, the legislation required actually that parents who wanted to use a voucher
to attend private school had to sign an affidavit that sort of affirmed that they were using that
voucher because of their dislike of racial integration. And it was specifically in the name of
parents rights. The phrase parents rights kind of came up in that period of time. Parents had the
right to keep their kids away from students of color in that time period. Now it's sort of the
different argument, but the language is the same. It's focused on gender. It's focused on certain
curricular materials that do associate with race. It's illegal, at least in on paper for private
schools, whether publicly or privately funded to overtly discriminate on the basis of race. But
there are ways that sort of schools can, you know, when it comes to vouchers, the important thing
for listeners to understand is that it's the school's choice. Schools do the picking. It's not the
parents. It's not the kids. The voucher is only as good as the school that lets the kid into that
to that to that school. The second point here too with you mentioned Project 2025. So vouchers
are two of the first three paragraphs in the voucher in Project 2025's education agenda. So
there's there's dismantled the US Department of Ed, which is sort of code to conservatives that
basically we're going to get rid of the most important anti-discrimination authority in the
United States, at least when it comes to schools. We're going to get rid of that, followed by
two paragraphs demanding universal vouchers, regardless of income. In the forward to Project 2025,
President of the Heritage Foundation makes vouchers a litmus test for all presidential candidates
conserved back to presidential candidates. vouchers are also in the first two senses of Trump's
47, Trump 47, education agenda. So these things are very much wrapped into its days,
sort of political, more broadly. And they're packaged with really pretty over calls against
what they call gender ideology, woke. So it is really important to understand today's voucher
push and really the success the voucher lobby has had expanding these bills in the moment that we're
in that's tied to all this other stuff. Project 2025 crusades again so-called woke in public schools,
book bans, restricting on what kids can read about race and gender and so on and so forth.
Yeah, Josh, this is so helpful, especially as our listeners right now. They're asking questions
about this presidential election and we've talked about it and it's been on the news and not
talked about enough, but talked about in a sense that Project 2025 sets forth the possibility to
or the proposal to eliminate the Department of Education. And so it's really helpful to hear from
you an expert researcher, a guy who values evidence. Here's kind of where we're at with vouchers
and here's why this is probably a bad idea. This plan moving forward is not a great idea.
So Josh, like thinking about things though, we want to strengthen our schools. I think the
listener out there is an agreement. We want to strengthen our schools and they're constantly being
told that vouchers will strengthen schools. So I know you've debunked that myth in your book.
I mean, you've shared enough information here on the show, but if you could hammer it home for
our listener, like for them as they're in conversations with their neighbors, we're saying,
I don't know, I heard these voucher things are the solution. What's a good arm them with a great
response? Well, first and foremost, vouchers will defund public schools and do.
defund public schools. They devastate student learning and vouchers discriminate against vulnerable
kids and families. Now, those three things are sort of vouchers. Again, defund public schools,
devastate student learning, discriminate against vulnerable kids and families. That's what vouchers do.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The other side's arguing on this. The voucher lobby
will say, just give everyone a coupon and let them sort between whatever schools they want. We don't
have to encounter tough questions about race, tough questions about gender, tough questions about
whatever. No, we don't have to have any of these conversations anymore. Just give everyone a
coupon to go do what they want. It doesn't work that way. It didn't work that way in the 50s when
they made that argument on the basis of racial to keep racial segregation. It doesn't work today
on other social issues. Again, we've talked about some of the reasons why some private schools do
the choosing. It's not really the parent. We talked about the fact that 70% of vouchers are already
in private school to begin with. We've talked about the fact that for the kids who do switch that 30%
on the other side, their results suffered tremendously. The reason for that, by the way, is that vouchers
mostly fund subprime private schools. What I mean by that is there are a lot of elite private schools
out there. There are. They don't take vouchers. They don't often take kids who really might need to
transfer from public to private school or might want to. Very, very strong evidence that vouchers
discriminate to illegally loaded word, but voucher schools
avoid enrolling students with disabilities. Evidence from places like Arkansas, voucher schools
requiring families to sign what they call sexual morality pledges. That's code for
no LGBTQ kids, no LGBTQ families. We've had anecdotal evidence that your child of divorce,
single mom, have a teenager that might become pregnant as happens sometimes. You're violating
our school's honor code. These things are happening in parts of the country where vouchers are
not solutions to educational inequality. And they avoid asking hard questions, which we still need
to ask about how do we make public schools more equitable, more accessible, more adequate for kids.
It starts with funding. The evidence is very strong that investing in public schools does work
for kids and families does need to community improvements across the board. But we got to reject
the snake oil salesman first and that starts with rejecting vouchers. We got to reject that because
Johnny's always laying into that to the investment is there and we know when we make the investment,
how that really does improve public schools. Josh, man, time flies so quickly when we're making
these interviews. Before we get a chance out of really kind of end here, I got a quote from
from your epilogue here and I'll just say right here, this is from Josh, although groups like
multiple state affiliates of the American Association of School Administrators and the National
School Boards Association, as well as the NEA and the AFT have lined up squarely against school
vouchers. There are few agreements about even how to counter the privatization push much less
alternatives when it comes to overlapping priorities, funding streams in key personnel. There is no
progressive or public school based equivalent of the network that you describe in the book.
That's that network of billionaires, Josh. I read that part and Johnny, we have said this, it's like
where is our billionaire? Where is somebody who's going to elevate Josh Conn and busted pencils
into the sphere where you've got, oh, I'm drawing a blank on his name, but how do we fight this
billionaire network? I have a modest proposal and that's let people decide, let voters decide,
let actual parents, not billionaire back to parent, grass, raster, church groups decide,
is it turns out vouchers have actually never won a single statewide ballot initiative. What
they want to mean by that is whenever they've been put to the vote and voucher lobby has tried,
send it to voters in the state they've been soundly rejected. In my state,
60, 65 to 35 percent. The voucher folks have been really heavily investing in as it turns out
Republican primaries, state legislatures, to pick off because opposition to vouchers is bipartisan.
Right. We're all Republicans hate these things, right? And so that's the Devosis group, some of
the Charles Koch groups have been doing is picking off vulnerable Republicans, now spending money
on Democrats, Republicans to build small legislative coalitions on the right way to eat these things
through ram them through state legislatures, often through the dead of night. So if you take these
things to the people, we got a couple on ballots now in Colorado, for example, in Kentucky,
there's a bill in Nebraska to rescind about your law there that will require a direct vote of the
people. I'm optimistic about those because again, vouchers have never survived a direct vote
by actual parents and voters. And we'll see what happens.
And this is great stuff, Tim. I mean, Josh, thank you for your research,
right, providing evidence to what we like to call scientific consensus around how we better make
decisions to support democracy. So this is really important stuff. Check out Josh's book, Josh,
before we wrap things up, can you let our listeners know where they can get more Josh Poin work,
plug the book, let them know where to get it because it's a great read folks. We're deep in it,
and you know, even as experts, we're learning a lot. And like Josh said, it is incredibly helpful
to having those bipartisan conversations that are crucial to the next stage of this country's
democracy. Josh, plug your stuff, man. Thank you for that. I mean, I am active for better
worse on social media. You can find me Josh Cowan MSU across those various platforms. But start
with the book. Start with the private tears. I wrote the book. You know, there's a lot of
myself in there, a lot of commentary, a lot of evidence, but there's also 562
footnotes, 40 pages of notes. You don't like what I have to say to write, go through those notes
and read the evidence yourself. There it is. So our guests, great author. The book,
make sure you do go check it out. The private tears, how billionaires created a culture war and
sold school vouchers. Josh Cowan with Johnny and I and Jess like to say, thank you for busting
pencils with us. I appreciate you having me, guys. Oh, that was a great one. Listener, if you have
a questioner, you want to ask Josh something or just want to send Tim or Johnny a question or a
comment. Remember, you can leave us a message at 608 557 8577. And of course, keep listening to busted
pencils.