{"id":3304,"date":"2018-06-08T16:14:19","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T20:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3304"},"modified":"2018-06-08T16:14:19","modified_gmt":"2018-06-08T20:14:19","slug":"more-reactions-to-schools-without-rules-article","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3304","title":{"rendered":"More reactions to Schools Without Rules article"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last weekend the Orlando Sentinel ran an article that’s part of their Schools Without Rules series that investigates private schools that accept public money via various scholarships (aka vouchers):\u00c2\u00a0Private schools’ curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together<\/a>. In a previous post I highlighted some reactions to the article<\/a>, good and bad. Now a few more reactions have appeared.<\/p>\n

First, the Orlando Sentinel ran an editorial:\u00c2\u00a0End the double standard for Florida schools educating students with public dollars.<\/a><\/p>\n

The revelations in Sunday’s story underscore the need for legislators to make another, more serious attempt to raise the bar at private schools subsidized with state scholarships. The next round needs to include some standards for instructional materials. Policymakers owe it to students with state scholarships, and to taxpayers footing the bill.<\/p>\n

This should not be hard sell — if those policymakers want all students educated with public money to excel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then writer Lauren Ritchie took a shot at the private schools:\u00c2\u00a0Florida must stop paying $1 billion a year to ‘educate’ children in fringe religious nonsense<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tim Dees, director of Downey Christian School in east Orange County, where 90 percent of his 275 students rely on state scholarships to pay tuition, defended his school: \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe believe our way is correct. We focus on creationism because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we believe.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No problem. Do fundamentalists want their kids to learn a bunch of hillbilly science? Handle venomous snakes? Learn that God looks down on Catholics, that America would still have slavery except \u00e2\u20ac\u2122some power-hungry individuals stirred up the people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122? Knock yourself out. Just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect anyone else to pay for it, and stop calling it \u00e2\u20ac\u02dceducation.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more like a 12-year sentence to some anamorphic Sunday school class from hell with no time off for good behavior.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Writer Scott Maxwell also jumped aboard: Enough fraud, scandal and excuses. 5 ways to clean up Florida’s voucher-school mess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But first, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about how the voucher industry \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and it is an industry, funded by nearly $1 billion of your tax dollars and corporate tax credits \u00e2\u20ac\u201d has responded.<\/p>\n

With whining, deflection and excuses.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Claims of faith-bashing. What malarkey. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a lifelong Christian, a church elder and former Sunday school teacher. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not opposed to Christianity. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m opposed to ignorance. And child-endangerment. And defrauding taxpayers. People who defend these messes at Christian schools with claims of faith-bashing don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do their faith any favors.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Five things need to happen. (…) 4. Curriculum plans should be filed with the state. Parents deserve to know what is being taught. Taxpayers deserve to know what curriculum they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re funding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And some breaking news: Scholarship programs at private schools need change, lawmakers say<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Central Florida lawmakers say they’d like to strengthen the rules, including new curriculum standards, for private schools that receive state vouchers after an Orlando Sentinel story showed some schools use textbooks with distorted history and science lessons that are outside mainstream academics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Will anything actually change? Stay tuned …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend the Orlando Sentinel ran an article that’s part of their Schools Without Rules series that investigates private schools that accept public money via various scholarships (aka vouchers):\u00c2\u00a0Private schools’ curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-Ri","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3299,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3299","url_meta":{"origin":3304,"position":0},"title":"Reactions to Schools Without Rules article","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel published an article a few days ago highlighting the atrocious curriculum some voucher-accepting private schools use:\u00c2\u00a0Private schools' curriculum downplays slavery, says humans and dinosaurs lived together. Now we're starting to see reactions to the story. First there is Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano writing about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2927,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=2927","url_meta":{"origin":3304,"position":1},"title":"Another barrel of rotten apples","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel is publishing a three part series about Florida private schools raking in voucher money from the state despite some incredibly ugly problems at those schools. The first part ran today:\u00c2\u00a0Schools Without Rules: An Orlando Sentinel Investigation (Florida private schools rake in nearly $1 billion in state scholarships\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antiscience nonsense"","block_context":{"text":"Antiscience nonsense","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=21"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3292,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3292","url_meta":{"origin":3304,"position":2},"title":"Blatant creationism in “Schools Without Rules”","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"June 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Orlando Sentinel has been running an excellent investigative series called \"Schools Without Rules\" about private schools that accept public money in the form of various types of scholarships (otherwise known as vouchers). The articles have been documenting \"problems in some scholarship schools, including campuses that hired teachers without degrees\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3292#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3520,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=3520","url_meta":{"origin":3304,"position":3},"title":"Florida Citizens for Science: Reject Senate Bill 48 and its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Education Savings Accounts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spring and that means it is time for the annual assault on Florida public schools by the powers that be in Tallahassee. For the third year in a row Governor Ron DeSantis and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran have crafted a bill that will divert even more taxpayer dollars to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1169,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1169","url_meta":{"origin":3304,"position":4},"title":"Should state money support bad science?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"An Orlando Sentinel article offers quite a bit of food for thought when it comes to state-financed tuition vouchers. This money is used to give parents the choice of sending their kids to public school or a private school. This leads to a very good question: is education quality the\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1169#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1763,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1763","url_meta":{"origin":3304,"position":5},"title":"Florida tax dollars going to anti-science schools","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"November 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"We need to get the content of this Orlando Sentinel article out into the wider public view, so please share and blog and tweet about it as much as you can: Florida already funnels millions in tax dollars to religious schools. There are quite a few religious schools getting \"voucher\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=1763#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3305,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3304\/revisions\/3305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}