The dominant two-party system, virulent partisanship and out-of-touch politicians are blamed for chronic failures of governance. The advantages conferred by incumbency are overwhelming; most members are repeatedly re-elected, reducing democratic choice. In terms of the presidency — the second constitutional pillar — systemic problems produce even greater anomalies.
Trump was the fifth president to win office despite losing the popular vote , thanks to the archaic, unaccountably unreformed electoral college process. Members of Congress are widely viewed as overly beholden to corporations, wealthy donors and special interests. In other words, they are seen as corrupt. The sums involved in greasing the wheels of US democracy are indeed eye-watering.
The need for such huge war chests effectively excludes many would-be candidates from the democratic process and places others in hock to their financial backers. Again, worries over excessive, non-transparent or illegal campaign financing long precede Trump. Despite many reform efforts, a growing proportion of funding comes from anonymous sources.
Mounting evidence of Russian influence-peddling and meddling has added to the sense of a gathering crisis of democracy. Russians have been seeking to undermine US democracy since US intelligence chiefs agree. How would he react? This is unknown, scary territory. In nominating a prominent conservative, Brett Kavanaugh , for the latest court vacancy, Trump followed recent practice in shaping the court to suit his political outlook.
It has not always worked this way. As the author David Greenberg has pointed out, supreme court nominations used to be mostly apolitical. This is not the constitution envisaged when they wrote the rules in Philadelphia in Yet, that aside, his rogue presidency is uniquely corrosive, right now, of democracy everywhere. His encouragement of ultranationalist, racist and neo-fascist forces from Warsaw to Charlottesville, divisive demagoguery, relentless vilification of independent journalism, contempt for the western European democracies, coddling of dictators and rejection of the established, rules-based international order all reinforce perceptions that the global role of the US as shining democratic beacon is dimming rapidly.
Trump did this all by himself.
So what is to be done? The most urgent task is to recognise what is happening. Radical, inclusive political reform is urgently required. Daniels had suggested, giving public schools "first shot. Behning, the law's tireless defender, argues that all parents deserve to choose their child's school, even those who have traditionally opted out of the public system. The parents of children in private schools, he says, "are taxpayers just like the parents in a traditional public school. This shift in the program's rules, begun by Pence in , has led to a shift in student demographics as well.
White voucher students are up from 46 percent that first year to 60 percent today, and the share of black students has dropped from 24 percent to 12 percent. Recipients are also increasingly suburban and middle class. A third of students do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals. While the program was once premised on giving low-income, public school families access to better schools, this year fewer than 1 percent of voucher students used a pathway, written into the law, that's meant specifically for students leaving failing schools.
She says of the old narrative that vouchers were largely meant to help low-income students escape underperforming public schools: Kayla Massy-Charles fits the old narrative. And she believes that the voucher she has been using for three years has provided a bridge to new possibilities. Kayla lives with her mother, Pauline Massy, in an apartment on the outskirts of Indianapolis. She attended public elementary and middle schools and wanted to stay in the system for high school, where she could join her neighborhood friends in show choir and color guard.
They live near a public high school, but it received a C rating from the state and serves more than 2, students. That was a problem for Kayla's mother. She leans into the last word. Pauline, who now works in nursing, attended a crowded public high school herself in Brooklyn, and she worried that Kayla, despite being a good student, would get lost in the crowd. So she attended an open house at a small, Catholic school nearly an hour away. For a decade, Providence Cristo Rey has been housed in an old, public elementary school building near downtown Indianapolis.
The wood floors creak, and the old water fountains hang at a first-grader's height. It's part of the national Cristo Rey Network, a chain of 32 private, Catholic high schools that serve low-income, minority students. In the case of Providence Cristo Rey, three-quarters of those students are not Catholic.
Pauline was impressed by the school's intimacy; it's one-tenth the size of Kayla's would-be public high school. It also has a better rating from the state, a B. She loved its emphasis on service and college completion and the fact that the school forges partnerships with local businesses and nonprofits to give students real-world work experience.
She fought her mother over the move, calling other family members and begging them to change Pauline's mind. Pauline Massy left attended a crowded public high school and wanted something more intimate for her daughter, Kayla Massy-Charles. Kayla's now a junior at a small, Catholic school. Because the school is an hour-long bus ride away, Kayla needs to wake up early each morning.
And that, she says, requires seven alarms: After three years of this, Kayla says she's happy and grateful for the move to private school.
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As proof, she points out that she is now a student ambassador for Providence Cristo Rey and knows just what to say to prospective students who seem as wary as she once was. You're more able to relate to somebody and have a one-on-one connection with them than if you went to a bigger school. Kayla is studying business and ultimately hopes to start her own hair salon.
If either mother or daughter has regrets now, it's Pauline. She says she was a passionate booster of Kayla's public schools and hated to withdraw her. And that might be selfish. It feels selfish on some days when I think about it. But I have to do what will get her to where she needs to be. It should come as no surprise that vouchers have become a cornerstone of Providence Cristo Rey's finances.
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Unlike many voucher-accepting private schools, it focuses on low-income, minority students with college ambitions. Nearly every student there receives a voucher. As a result, 31 percent of the school's total receipts last year came from vouchers, according to its annual report. But vouchers have also had an important effect on more traditional private schools — and more affluent ones. Its manicured campus includes a fine arts building and a gleaming stadium for its football team, the Rebels.
Roncalli, which received an A rating from the state, currently enrolls roughly 1, students. One in five qualifies for free or reduced-price meals. He repeats the line with a smile, making clear he means it affectionately. Weisenbach says he fully supports the voucher program.
Echoing Daniels, he believes giving low-income families access to high-quality schools like his is "one of the greatest social justice issues our country's facing — because we know education is also proven to be the most consistent avenue out of poverty.
While nearly every student at Providence Cristo Rey receives a voucher, a far smaller share of Roncalli students qualify: And that money has allowed the school to scale back the financial aid it offers. Roncalli High, a Catholic school in Indianapolis, has a campus that includes a fine arts building and a gleaming stadium for its football team, the Rebels. Today, roughly 40 percent of all private school students in Indiana receive a state voucher. The program has allowed many financially stable schools, like Roncalli, to save and invest elsewhere.
For schools that were financially strapped — and, with Catholic school enrollment plunging in recent years , there are many of those — vouchers have been a lifeline, not just in Indiana but also in Milwaukee, home to the nation's oldest voucher program. In a recent study of Milwaukee's program, researchers found "vouchers are now a dominant source of funding for many churches" and that parishes "running voucher-accepting schools get more revenue from vouchers than from worshipers.
Also, it's important to consider not just where the money is going in Indiana's voucher program but where it's coming from: According to Indiana University's Center for Evaluation and Education Policy , Indiana spends less per pupil, after adjusting for inflation, than it did in Behning points out that the state spends less on a voucher student than it would if that student were in a public school.
What's left, he says, particularly the money a district raises locally through property taxes, "stays in the public school system. But, in Indiana, most of a school's day-to-day classroom funding comes from the state. Local money is generally limited to covering things like building maintenance, debt and transportation.
Those are not incidental costs, but when a public school loses a student to the voucher program, it loses thousands of dollars that help pay for teachers and classroom costs. The state has also created so much new demand for limited resources that, last summer, its Department of Education, then under Democratic control, released a report that Republican lawmakers dispute.
Parents of children in private schools, he says, "are taxpayers just like the parents in a traditional public school. The state requires little financial transparency from private schools that benefit from vouchers, and, in rare cases, the lack of oversight has allowed them to mismanage state funds. In , a small, private Indianapolis school was approved to continue receiving voucher payments despite an investigation by the state attorney general's office and multiple lawsuits alleging it had not paid teachers and defaulted on loans.
They cited "misinterpreted complex guidelines" for the errors that were not uncovered by the state. Lawmakers also scuttled a recent effort to require voucher-accepting private schools to submit annual financial reports, in part because of Behning's opposition. How they handle that payment, as long as they're not doing something illegal, is not in the state's jurisdiction. He calls the Choice Scholarship program "rigorously accountable" and complains that "just getting a cost-benefit statement from a traditional public school district is impossible. Enlow also points out that, when it comes to academic accountability, Indiana stands out among voucher states.
Its voucher-accepting private schools are accredited and required to administer the state test. They must also submit to the state's A-F system, which grades schools based on various benchmarks, including test scores and graduation rates. Private schools can even be prevented from accepting new voucher students if they receive a D or F rating for two consecutive years, though lawmakers recently agreed to let these struggling schools apply for a waiver that would allow them to continue. Unlike voucher programs in some other states, participating private schools in Indiana have the freedom to do what they've always done: Behning defends that decision, saying it was important that schools retain their ability to be selective.
A spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Education, Adam Baker, says "a private school can deny a student based on past academic performance or prior disciplinary action," among other criteria. Some schools post GPA requirements on their websites. Struggling students need not apply. Ditto students with a suspension. This has raised fears among the state's public school leaders that private schools are cherry-picking. A statue of Jesus watches over Fort Wayne. Behning's "fiber" isn't limited to academic performance or behavior.
Some private schools also require parents to certify that they are members of the church that manages the school or to sign a statement of faith. In its online admissions packet, Lighthouse Christian Academy in Bloomington lays out its expectations of students. It lists "behaviors prohibited in the Bible" to include "homosexual or bisexual activity or any form of sexual immorality" and "practicing alternate gender identity or any other identity or behavior that violates God's ordained distinctions between the two sexes, male and female.
The school then makes clear that, "in situations in which the home life violates these standards, LCA reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to refuse admission of an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student. The voucher law prohibited the state from regulating "curriculum content, religious instruction or activities, classroom teaching, teacher and staff hiring requirements, and other activities carried out by the eligible school.
When it comes to selectivity, private schools in Indiana enjoy considerable freedom — so much, in fact, that it might be more instructive to ask: For what reasons can they not deny a student admission? Baker, the Department of Education spokesman, says private schools "cannot deny children based on race, color, national origin or disability" in accordance with state civil rights law.
Just outside the Indianapolis city limits, Carol Crawn sits at her breakfast table scrolling through Facebook. Behind her, in the living room, the Today show plays quietly on a television over the fireplace. Her year-old daughter, who is on the autism spectrum, sleeps quietly on the sofa, her hair an explosion of ringlets. Crawn is a special education teacher by training and an advocate for people just like her — parents of children with disabilities who are trying to navigate a state education system that doesn't always have their child's interests in mind.
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Crawn points out a recent Facebook thread among a community of Indianapolis parents. This, says Crawn, is a common concern among parents of students with disabilities. They're not sure why the system isn't working for their children, but they're sure it isn't working.
A part-time advocate with Family Voices Indiana , Crawn tries to connect these parents with resources. When she first noticed the Facebook thread, she posted, in part: The school rebuffed her after seeing her daughter's Individualized Education Program, or IEP, a public school document that outlines a student's special needs.
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Carol and Mark Crawn have a year-old daughter who is on the autism spectrum. Some schools, like Roncalli High, the Catholic school in Indianapolis, do have the resources and are more inclusive. Among its offerings for special-needs students is what Principal Chuck Weisenbach calls its Life Academy. The program includes academics, work study and time spent in a mock apartment where students cook for themselves, budget and do their own laundry. According to state data, Providence Cristo Rey did not enroll a single student this year who requires special education services.
This year, 8 percent of Liberty Christian's K students receive special education services. That's higher than many voucher-accepting private schools but well below the state average, This is key to understanding Indiana's voucher program. Public schools are required to accept all students, regardless of disability.
Voucher schools are not. In many cases, it's not the students who choose the schools but the schools that choose the students. What does the law say? Most students are protected from school discrimination by the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. But private, religious schools are exempt from the ADA, and most voucher schools in Indiana are religious. Voucher schools argue that they're not discriminating; they're simply being honest. And the state appears to agree with them. The Indiana Department of Education says it encourages these schools to be upfront with families about their limitations.
If they don't believe they can serve a student with special needs, they should say that. The parent doesn't have to choose that school. When NPR pointed out that some private schools are, indeed, discouraging and even turning away special education students, the department said it has never received a formal parent complaint of discrimination. Baker, the Department of Education spokesman, wants to be clear, though: The state's new, Republican superintendent, Jennifer McCormick, would like to see change.
Her administration believes any school "that receives public dollars should be held to the same standard. We've made that known," Baker says. That's a legislative decision. In the meantime, Robinson, the Fort Wayne superintendent, says state data prove that special education students are being turned away:.
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The special ed student's [in public school]. In Fort Wayne, Robinson is right: Students who receive special education services are much more likely to attend public schools, where federal law guarantees they will get a free, appropriate education. More than 15 percent of the city's public school students are considered special education.
But the average special education rate at private schools now being used by Fort Wayne voucher students is less than half that, 6. And Fort Wayne is the rule, not the exception. Seventeen percent of public school students in Indianapolis receive special education. In private, voucher schools used by Indianapolis students, the rate is 7 percent. It's the same story in Evansville 16 percent in public schools vs.