NOW with Bill Moyers. Transcript. March 26, 2004 | PBS
MICHELE MITCHELL (NOW correspondent): This is Eugene Hickok, the Undersecretary of Education. He’s got some weight when it comes to who receives that $77 million. And how do you decide what programs are deserving of the investment?
EUGENE HICKOK, UNDERSECRETARY OF EDUCATION: Well, as a matter of fact, it’s called the Fund for the Improvement of Education. It is the only truly discretionary money the Secretary has.
MITCHELL: Discretionary means the secretary can give it to whoever he wants, without having to ask Congress. And the organizations that actually got money had a single goal: to steer public opinion away from public education toward mainly private alternatives, like those school voucher programs, where private academies would be reimbursed for the cost of teaching students who choose to opt out of public school systems.
It’s a tough sell. Vouchers have been consistently voted down in the states for nearly 30 years. But the President hasn’t stopped selling.
BUSH [Milwaukee, July 2, 2002]: You call it whatever you want to call it — vouchers, choice, whatever it is. Freedom for parents is what I call it.
MITCHELL: This push for school vouchers has been a windfall for the President’s campaign buddies. If you are a Republican pal, or you donated money to the party, or you’ve been active in conservative education circles, then your day has arrived. … But remember, this money is going to promote private alternatives to public education. And look at who’s getting that taxpayer funding.
Groups like K-12, a profit-making company run by Bill Bennett. Who’s he? Bill Bennett: Ronald Reagan’s former secretary of education, who has spent decades railing against public education. Here’s his company’s Web site. According to the department’s own numbers, Bennett’s group got 14 million taxpayer dollars to promote “virtual” home schooling.
MITCHELL: The Education Leaders Council was Undersecretary Gene Hickok’s outfit before he joined the administration. Since then, it got nearly $16 million to promote a new program tracking school performance over the Internet.
And that same group started the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, billed as a conservative alternative to teacher certification. Now, Home schoolers can become teachers by taking an Internet exam. This new program got $35 million.
And those numbers don’t include the additional $12 million going to other groups, many with overlapping boards of directors, who are selling the idea of school vouchers to targeted audiences: white suburban soccer moms, African Americans and Hispanics. …
But while taxpayer money for public education is being used to promote privatization, the public schools themselves continue to struggle. Fourteen states are criticizing the administration for underfunding by $8 billion its centerpiece program, No Child Left Behind. And that’s just the tip of it.
PRESIDENT BUSH [February 13, 2004]: No child left behind. I like the sound of that.
MITCHELL: It always sounds great when politicians talk about improving education, But in fact, the 77 million dollars, by promoting private alternatives to public schools may hurt the long term funding for public education.
LARRY NOBLE, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS: If you can’t get the money from Congress directly, because there’s a lot of opposition to the school voucher program. A lot of thought that it takes money away from public education, then what do you do? Well, you go to your friends within the administration, you go to your friends within the Department of Education, and you go after the discretionary money. The money that they can give out without having to really answer to Congress, without having to really answer to the American public.
MITCHELL: But remember, this is not just about promoting an agenda Congress never approved. There are serious questions about how this money is being used, or misused, who’s making money, or wasting it.
The Radical Right despises the Department of Education and would do anything to destroy it. In the meantime, they’re happy to take handouts from that same department and use that money to undermine public education. mjh