#breed specific legislation

[doggozila]

Dog Controversies in our Communities 

[kittykat3801]

BREED SPECIFIC LEGISLATION STUDY

UK CASE STUDIES NEEDED

I am doing a study on Breed Specific Legislation in the UK. I am looking for case studies. If you live in the UK, & have owned any of the breeds listed below or have had any experience with BSL, please DM me on here or email me at: JadeSirmon3801@gmail.com

Breeds I am looking for case studies on:

Banned Breeds:

- Dogo Argentino

- American Pit Bull Terrier

- Japanese Tosa

- Fila Brasiliero

- XL Bully

Other "Bully" Breeds:

- Staffordshire Bull Terrier

- American Bulldog

- Cane Corso

- Bull/English Mastiff

- Any bully type crossbreed

[mildcicada]

[grison-in-space]

via @3liza:

#dogs#pitbulls#long post#this is another reason pitbull hysteria is nonsense#theyre not running dna tests on aggressive dogs theyre just taking people's word for it that they can magically tell someone's yard mutt#is a “pittbull”

yup. yuuuup. again, I Embarked two dogs, and I genuinely thought a priori that there was a pretty solid chance that there was a pretty solid chunk of pit bull in Tribble, who had spent her entire muscly, no-body fat, short-faced, brindled life being pegged as a pit mix. We even took training classes through Love-a-Bull back in the day. Here's what she looked like as a young dog:

It turned out that she was almost totally devoid of pit bull. Instead, she get those looks from hefty doses of Boston Terrier and Boxer, with a bewildering smatter of Mastiff (the dog weighs 35 pounds), Golden Retriever, Chow, and less verifiable things.

Again: One of these two dogs is half pit bull, and one contains no verifiable pit bull breed.

The one who is part American Bully is the one on the left. (By the way, he's also the one who is less dog reactive than either of the girls.)

Breed! identification! is! hard! and! not! a! good! proxy! for! behavior! if the problem is potential behavior and danger, you get way better results from assessing dogs based on behavior histories. ffs.

gotta say, the "id dog breeds" gimmick is fun and all but the thing about referencing biological categories is that they're so much messier than the car model IDs that are being riffed off. especially with anything with a poodle coat, given.... the thirty years of doodles meaning that there are a hell of a lot of crosses out there.

I would not personally presume to confidently announce the breed of any poodle/doodly thing without having hands on it, because a) crosses with all manner of options are so common, b) so much of the common heuristic for recognizing poodle vs doodle is a matter of haircut, and c) it's so hard to assess anything about the structure of a dog with a loose, rough coat that obscures the dog's shape. Frankly, after getting Benton's Embark back, I also don't make confident pronouncements about any mix.

Yeah, that dog is approximately half American Bully. Guess that from looking at him, folks. (I routinely flabbergast dog professionals by encouraging them to guess his breed makeup.) I still regularly read the r/DoggyDNA subreddit, and it's just astonishing how many ways there are to build a mutt and how hard it is to accurately predict anything about a mixed breed dog's ancestry without additional information--especially when a lot of colors pop out in mixes in some rather unexpected ways. (For example: Golden and Labrador retriever mixes have a pronounced tendency to pop out as brindles, bewildering everyone concerned. There are a lot of dominant black pit bulls. And about 75% of anything with a wire coat is poodle, not any kind of terrier.) There are so many ways to get a black and tan or sable dog. If you want to claim expertise, you have to know what the limits of your knowledge are and when you need additional information to make a call.

Identifying purebred dogs which come out of a controlled gene pool is obviously much easier, although you need to be aware how various populations within breeds have been selected and what those populations typically look like. Even then, you need to be careful: it's so easy to assume that conformation shots show you what a given dog breed looks like, but that's usually not the case: both pet and working populations have often diverged substantially from the conformation ideal, not least because conformation standards are a fucking social construct. We have to distinguish between socially constructed and natural categories when we try to learn how to run these kinds of identifications.

more broadly, dogs are living things and therefore they don't come with model numbers or unique serial numbers. "Breed" is a social construct that shapes their populations because, basically, our human culture says it should. You can identify a car very accurately because cars are human-made inanimate objects, and each category of car is essentially identical within the category at construction. That's how mass-produced items work. They lend themselves so nicely to this kind of ordered assignment and identification.

Animals do not work like that. You can strive for uniformity all you want, but mutation is going to pop up and fuck with your carefully uniform lines when you aren't looking. For example, just look at the C57BL/6J and C57BL/6N mouse substrains, which have been bred in total isolation from any other mouse population in brother-sister matings aiming for total uniformity since the 1930s... and were noticed having developed divergent characteristics by the 1950s. Turns out that substrain matters.

And you can't tell without running some very specific tests, let alone from any marker so plain as a static picture.

[fjordfolk]

too much anti-BSL propaganda on this site. tell me which breed YOU would ban

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - November 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles on Patreon!

1. Climate Initiatives Fare Well Across the Country Despite National Political Climate

“[California voters approved] a $10 billion bond measure to boost climate resilience across [the] state[…. Hawai’i] voters cast their ballots in favor of establishing the [climate] resiliency fund, with money for the project coming from existing property tax revenue.“

2. ‘You have to disguise your human form’: how sea eagles are being returned to Severn estuary after 150 years

“[… To avoid imprinting,] the handlers will wear long robes and feed the young eagles chopped rabbit and other meat with bird hand-puppets. […] Williams hopes that restoring eagles to the top of the food chain in the estuary will create a more balanced, thriving ecosystem.”

3. 10 states voted on pro-abortion referendums. 7 of them passed

“New York voters overwhelmingly approved the Equal Rights Amendment, adding [… among other characteristics] gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes to anti-discrimination laws. […] In deep-red Missouri and Montana, voters also enshrined abortions protections in their state constitutions.”

4. Giant rats could soon fight illegal wildlife trade by sniffing out elephant tusk and rhino horn

“”Our study shows that we can train African giant pouched rats to detect illegally trafficked wildlife, even when it has been concealed among other substances[.…] They can easily access tight spaces like cargo in packed shipping containers or be lifted up high to screen the ventilation systems of sealed containers,” Szott explained.”

5. Sarah McBride wins Delaware U.S. House seat, becoming the first out trans member of Congress

“McBride spearheaded Delaware’s legislation to ban the “gay and trans panic” defense as a state senator [… and] helped to pass paid family and medical leave, gun safety measures, and protections for reproductive rights.”

6. Critically endangered Sumatran elephant calf born in Indonesia

“Indonesian officials hailed the births and said they showed conservation efforts were essential to prevent the protected species from extinction. […] Sumatran elephants are on the brink of extinction with only about 2,400-2,800 left in the world, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.”

7. Sin City is Going Green

“[Hotels there] have conserved 16 billion gallons of water since 2007, thanks to […] replacing grass with desert-friendly landscaping, installing water-efficient taps across all properties, and reusing water at aquariums and in the Bellagio Fountain.”

8. Gray squirrel control: Study shows promise for effective contraceptive delivery system

“[… T]he feeders have a very high level of species-specificity. […] The bait and monitoring system developed and tested in the study demonstrated that […] “spring was the only season tested where female squirrels were more likely to visit bait feeders than males. Spring coincides with a peak in squirrel breeding and is therefore a good time to deliver a contraceptive."”

9. Returning Grazing Land to Native Forests Would Yield Big Climate Benefits

“[… S]trategically regrowing forests on land where cattle currently graze […] while intensifying production elsewhere could drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, with little hit to global protein production, a new study shows.”

10. Interior Department Strengthens Conservation of American Bison Through New Agreement with Canada and Mexico

“Approximately 31,000 bison are currently being stewarded by the United States, Canada and Mexico with the goal of conserving the species and their role in the function of native grassland systems, as well as their place in Indigenous culture.”

October 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[fandomtrumpshate]

Fan Labor Offerings

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Translation in five different languages

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Read on for the full list - and stay until the end for some of the more unique offers!

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Medical issues including: Ehler Danlos, surgery, escoliosis, partial disability, poor eyesight, migraines, diabetes, stroke, intellectual disabilities, physical disabilities, and experience with hospitalization

Educational info on charter schools, language immersion education, and US public education

Hobbies- Camping/hiking Chess Choir Classical music, specifically opera Film Geocaching Historical literature Horse care & general equestrian activities Music Musical instruments (guitar, ukulele, handbells) Pet ownership of multiple species/breeds Sewing, tailoring, alterations, fashion history and flat pattern-making Sports culture (US) Textile crafts (esp knitting and mending) Voice and vocal technique

Subcultures including BDSM and leather/kink, Goth, and j-fashion.

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You guys know So Much. We're so lucky you're all so willing to share!

Want to join us? Sign ups are open until Sunday Feb 2!

[despazito]

Me: breed specific legislation is stupid

Me 20 minutes later: anyone who creates more purebred english bulldogs should be given thirty lashes

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - March 27, 2023

🐢 - Why did the 90-year-old tortoise become a father? Because he finally came out of his shell!

1. New Mexico governor signs bill ending juvenile life sentences without parole

New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed a bill into law that prevents juvenile offenders from receiving life sentences without eligibility for parole. The bill, known as the No Life Sentences for Juveniles Act, allows offenders who committed crimes under the age of 18 and received life sentences to be eligible for parole hearings 15 to 25 years into their sentences.

This legislation also applies to juveniles found guilty of first-degree murder, even if they were tried as adults. The move puts New Mexico in a group of at least 24 other states and Washington, DC, that have enacted similar measures following a 2021 Supreme Court ruling.

2. Promising pill completely eliminates cancer in 18 leukaemia patients

An experimental pill called revumenib has shown promise in curing terminal leukemia patients who were not responding to treatment in a long-awaited clinical trial in the United States. The drug works by inhibiting a specific protein called menin, which is involved in the machinery that gets hijacked by leukemia cells and causes normal blood cells to turn into cancerous ones.

The pill targets the most common mutation in acute myeloid leukemia, a gene called NPM1, and a less common fusion called KMT2A. The US Food and Drug Administration granted revumenib "breakthrough therapy designation" to fast-track its development and regulatory review based on the promising results of the trial.

3. Spain passes law against domestic animal abuse

Spain has passed a new law on animal welfare, accompanied by a reform of the penal code that increases prison sentences for those mistreating animals. The law will make compulsory training for dog owners, and will prohibit them from leaving their dogs alone for more than 24 hours.

It also mandates the sterilisation of cats, with exceptions for farms, and increases the penalties for mistreatment of animals to up to two years in prison, or three years in the event of aggravating circumstances.

4. Bravery medals for women who raced into 'rough, crazy' surf to save drowning girls

Elyse Partridge (far left) and Bella Broadley (far right) raced into dangerous surf to save Chloe and Violet from drowning.(ABC North Coast: Hannah Ross)

Bella Broadley and Elyse Partridge saved two 11-year-old girls from drowning at Angels Beach near Ballina, an unpatrolled beach in Australia. The younger girls, Chloe and Violet, became trapped in a rip and overwhelmed by waves and the current. Bella and Elyse jumped into action, using an esky lid as a flotation device to help them swim to the girls. Elyse helped Chloe back to shore while Bella swam further out to help Violet.

Elyse and Bella were on Wednesday named on the Governor General's Australian Bravery Decorations Honours List, which recognised 66 Australians for acts of bravery.

5. Almost every cat featured in viral Tik Tok posted by Kansas City animal shelter adopted

Let's find homes for the rest

6. A 90-year-old tortoise named Mr. Pickles just became a father of 3. It's a big 'dill'

These critically endangered tortoises are native to Madagascar and have seen their numbers decline due to over-collection for illegal sales on the black market. Captive breeding programs have helped produce new radiated tortoises, but the species still faces extinction in the wild.

That's why the arrival of these hatchlings, born to 90-year-old Mr. Pickles and his 53-year-old partner Mrs. Pickles, is such great news. Mr. Pickles is considered the most genetically valuable radiated tortoise in the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan, and the births represent a significant contribution to the survival of the species.

7. EU strikes ‘ground-breaking’ deal to cut maritime emissions

The European Parliament and EU ministers have agreed on a new law to cut emissions in the maritime sector. The law aims to reduce ship emissions by 2% as of 2025 and 80% as of 2050, covering greenhouse gas, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions.

The European Commission will review the law in 2028 and will decide whether to place carbon-cutting requirements on smaller ships. The agreement will also require containerships and passenger ships docking at major EU ports to plug into the on-shore power supply as of 2030. Penalties collected from those that fail to meet the targets will be allocated to projects focused on decarbonising the maritime sector.

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[darkwood-sleddog]

AVENUES FOR CONTACTING REGARDING THE NEW CDC DOG IMPORTATION RULING

The CDC recently released their newly revised rules applying to all dogs wishing to enter the United States. This includes stricter paperwork and veterinary record requirements within a certain timeframe, implantation of a specific type of microchip PRIOR to rabies vaccination and a hardline restriction on any dog younger than six months. You can view all the new requirements HERE.

It is my belief that several aspects of the new ruling require additional review and nuance that is not being taken, specifically the 6 month of age rule which in my opinion is over regulatory as dogs can be fully inoculated against rabies at four months of age.

The new ruling makes very little if any distinction of dogs coming from high risk rabies countries and dogs coming from no/low risk rabies countries. The reasoning outlined in the ruling is to "streamline" the process of importation by making the requirements the same across all areas of import. This is unreasonable to countries that have no rabies present as they pose no risk.

Additionally, these rules do not take into account the shared land borders between the United States, Canada and Mexico and treats Canada and Mexico like other foreign bodies which is unreasonable. People living in border areas often cross between the US and Canada/Mexico on a frequent basis. There is no fencing at the Canadian border and wildlife of any health status can cross freely on both the northern and southern border. There are also border towns and enclaves that have an increased frequency of border crossings for daily life that need to be taken into account in regards to the paperwork requirements.

And Finally, I take big issue with the fact the ruling and reasonings behind several of the restrictions addressing the concerns of hobbyist and ethical dog breeders regarding the restriction on age of import will put on genetic diversity of dog breeds. Many breeders would rather place a puppy in an equally good home in a country where the puppy can be home at the critical young age than hold on to a dog for months. This will also prevent sport dog, service dog, and working dog puppies from being properly socialized into their future roles. Not only does the CDC make no exception for service dogs, dogs of military families, or any dog in this instance, but they addressed hobbyist and preservation breeder's concerns by stating that the USDA already has rules limited dog imports to 6 months of age for commercial breeding. Note that commercial breeding and what requires a USDA license is very specifically outlined by the USDA which does make exceptions for hobbyist breeding. The CDC ruling talks about commercial and hobbyist breeding as the same thing, referring specifically to the USDA even though the USDA themselves make specific distinctions. The CDC ruling equates hobby breeding with commercial breeding directly, with no acknowledgment that even if they were the same the puppy can be and is often most often already purchased and legally owned by the client/new owner so breeder requirements would no longer be applicable.

There are many other individual concerns. These are just my top concerns.

What can you do?

HERE is a change.org petition by Jaye Foucher that outlines similar concerns that I share as well as ones more specific to sled dog teams traveling and those that frequently do business in Alaska.

CONTACT the CDC directly and voice any concerns you have.

Contact your REPRESENTATIVES and SENATORS, especially if you live in a border state. Phone OR email would be fine. I personally prefer email as it provides a written record of the communication. While the CDC is not full of elected officials, the Senate and House recently passed an Agriculture bill titled "The Healthy Dog Importation Act" where many of the new restrictions are echoed and reiterated on a legislative level.

[transmutationisms]

what do you think of genetic engineering? honestly i’d be curious about any sources you might have on the topic, because most of what i hear about it is that “it’ll definitely be a reality soon and it will be used for eugenicist reasons” and so i’m curious on what your thoughts on that may be

genetic engineering is like artificial intelligence in that both phrases are used in extremely imprecise ways that imply the existence of specific technological meanings and advances without actually specifying in lay discourses what people are talking about.

like, do you mean CRISPR-style, bespoke targeted genetic alteration of human beings? my understanding is that's a pretty distant idea for all but maybe a select few very simple changes. most human traits are controlled by a lot of different genes, altering them can do other weird unpredictable things up- or down-stream, and it's incredibly hard to even identify for sure which genes are doing what in the first place. but i'm not a geneticist or someone who pays close attention to current genetic science so, you'd have to ask around.

if we want to be serious about the concept of "genetic engineering," though, then it's not philosophically defensible to exclude things like selectively breeding plants and animals, or eugenic policies like forcibly sterilising certain people or writing welfare legislation in such a way that is intended to encourage or discourage certain people to reproduce, &c &c. the truth is that people have been fantasising about altering the human genome since they named/discovered it, and about biologically improving/ameliorating the species in ways we could call 'proto-eugenic' for a lot longer than that. i don't think it's usually useful to talk about a technology as being 'good' or 'bad' in itself; a capitalist state makes use of biotech in eugenic and biopolitical ways because that's what serves capitalist interests. this is already happening and has been for a long time, and whatever media or social media frenzy about sci-fi-style targeted human gene editing is kind of just missing the rights-abusing forest for the sensationalist techno-dystopia trees imo.

[wolf-tail]

How do you feel about the Night Lord breed-specific legislation that's being discussed in some countries? I think it's kind of stupid- Dark Eldar are prone to the exact same behavior as Night Lords, but you never see people trying to ban them.

Is it just because Night Lords are physically more imposing and therefore scare people more?

That's exactly it. A well-trained Night Lord is WAY safer than most Dark Eldar.

[l3irdl3rain]

But isnt it important to preserve cat breeds too? Not specifically that level of Persian, but doll faced Persians are fine. Cat breeds do have important expected traits and temperaments too after all. And responsible cat breeders don’t usually contribute to the problem of too many cats. Ofc there’s also gonna be mill breeders for cats much like dogs. Which sucks but idk if any legislation could help that problem.

This is probably an unpopular opinion but I don’t care about preserving cat breeds. In my opinion a cat is a cat is a cat. I could go to the shelter and find a cat that is intelligent and talkative like a Siamese. I could go to the shelter and find a cat that’s friendly and gentle like a maine coon.

Obviously I totally respect that there are people who care about preserving cat breeds, I just don’t. And I find it hard to think that’s worth potentially worsening the severe overpopulation issue we have in this country.

Edit: I saw your ask worrying you worded this in an aggressive way. You’re all good!! Did not read it like that at all

[mariacallous]

Few things are more fundamental to a society than its traditions. They guide our actions through difficult and changing times. They keep us grounded and steady. They build on the wisdom of our forerunners. At least, that is the way conservatives, usually, look at the world.

But on one issue—school vouchers—some conservatives are playing the role of radicals. The general goal of vouchers is to allow families to use government funds to pay tuition at private schools, including religious schools. The idea has been around for more than a half-century but had gone almost nowhere in the U.S., until very recently. In just the past few years, it has gone from the political desert to a core issue that is sweeping across Republican-led states.

The general idea of vouchers is radical enough, but the particular form of these new programs is far more so. Fourteen states and counting have now passed legislation creating voucher (or education savings account) programs that share some key properties. They are universal (or nearly universal), meaning that all families are eligible. They involve no meaningful public accountability or way to judge their success. They allow private schools to charge tuition over and above the voucher amount. And, finally, they are flexible in that funds can be used even to cover homeschooling expenses and other educational goods and services, such as computers and tutoring.

These aren’t just any vouchers. They are “super-vouchers,” as I call them, that promise to produce the most radical change, of any kind, in U.S. education in at least 70 years. It represents not just a change in policy or strategy but a rejection of three foundational traditions: separation of church and state, anti-discrimination, and public accountability for educational processes and outcomes funded by taxes.

In this post, I describe the threat that today’s universal voucher programs present to these traditions, and I attend to some potential counterarguments from voucher supporters.

The separation of church and state tradition

America’s education traditions can be traced far back in our history. While the U.S. Constitution does not mention education, it was an issue actively discussed by the nation’s founders, and other elements of the Constitution have a heavy bearing on education. The First Amendment includes the Establishment Clause, which prevents Congress from either supporting or limiting the free exercise of religion. This language has long been understood to imply that governments should not fund religious organizations (including religious schools), especially in a way that preferences one religion over another.

As a result of education’s omission from the Constitution, primary responsibility for education was ultimately delegated to the states. Education is one of only a few topics covered in every state constitution—with all states guaranteeing universal access and most specifically mentioning public education. To many, this means that education should be not only funded by the government but accessible to all, subject to public oversight, and, yes, non-sectarian (non-religious).

It’s easy to see how vouchers, especially the new breed of them, violate these principles. Vouchers provide government funds to churches, despite the historical separation of church and state. Voucher advocates argue that today’s voucher systems are legal, and our current Supreme Court seems to agree, but that doesn’t change the fact vouchers will entangle the government and religion. With any voucher program, the government must decide which schools are eligible to receive funding. Will the public—in particular, citizens in red states where universal ESA programs are most popular—be just as willing to fund Islamic, Hindi, Mormon, Jewish, and atheist schools as they are Christian schools? That’s not clear. Even if states treat all religions equally, some very public battles over religious schools will surely follow. Already, many voucher-supported religious schools have been the subject of front-page newspaper headlines regarding their most controversial teachings. We should expect this to continue.

Voucher proponents sometimes try to refute the idea that the separation of church and state for schooling even applies, pointing out that publicly funded schools taught religion in the early 1800s, with children reading from the Bible. However, a more complete telling of our history would note that the need for a separation between church and state became clearer as the country—and its students—grew more diverse. We shouldn’t use past wrongs to justify making the same mistakes today.

The anti-discrimination tradition

The U.S. Constitution, under the Fourteenth Amendment, establishes equal protection before the law. Ratified in the wake of the Civil War, this was meant to remediate the blatantly unequal treatment of Black people in every aspect of life, created by slavery. The Fourteenth Amendment can be viewed as reinforcing the accessible-to-all principle embodied in state constitutions.

This was not nearly enough, however, to provide meaningful access to Black Americans. Civil War Reconstruction efforts on education were modest and short lived. The Court’s 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision also established the principle of “separate but equal.” Even that low standard for access was not achieved, as few states provided more than a pittance in funding for Black schools. They were anything but equal for at least another half century. Then came the Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which reinterpreted the Fourteenth Amendment and rejected the separate-but-equal doctrine in schools. The decision began to slowly reorient public education towards an anti-discrimination tradition. Solidifying it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and national origin, and expanded the federal government’s authority to enforce anti-discrimination law in publicly funded programs (including public schools).

Most forms of vouchers undermine the anti-discrimination tradition. While private schools cannot legally discriminate based on race because of the Civil Rights Act, they can discriminate on most other dimensions, including religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, income, and disability status. Moreover, the protections against racial discrimination are stronger in public schools, with additional avenues for recourse available to public school students through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Discrimination issues often arise in admissions, and private schools leaders believe strongly in their right to selective admissions requirements. Put another way, private school leaders feel they should be able to determine which students get in and which get turned away. While not all admission requirements are inherently problematic, private school admissions practices leave the door open for discrimination. And with potential discriminatory treatment hidden behind opaque admissions practices, it will be exceedingly difficult to identify discrimination where it occurs. When schools are allowed to discriminate on one set of factors, it is difficult to prove that a student is discriminated against based on other factors, such as race.

This is not just an abstract argument. The conflict between integration, discrimination, and vouchers was plain to see in the wake of Brown. Segregationists searched for ways to sidestep the Court’s decision. One main solution they stumbled upon: school vouchers. They understood well that vouchers would allow them to continue their discrimination.

Voucher advocates might resist my argument about the tradition of anti-discrimination, pointing to supposed examples of discrimination in public schools. For example, public schools “discriminate” against children who do not live within their geographic boundaries. It’s true that some families cannot afford to live in expensive neighborhoods with well-resourced schools. However, public school boundaries, for all their faults, are designed to ensure that all students have access to a public school—one of the core tenets of public education. When parents drive by a school, their children might ask, “Can I go to that school?” There’s a big difference between answering with, “No, dear, because we don’t live in this neighborhood” and “No, dear, because the school doesn’t want you.”

It’s worth noting, too, that voucher advocates need the universal accessibility of public schools for voucher programs to work. With voucher-supported schools allowed to discriminate in admissions, it’s the guaranteed availability of a neighborhood public school that ensures that no child will be denied access to any school at all.

The public accountability tradition

In the U.S., school districts operate under (typically elected) boards that provide public accountability—specifically, democratic accountability to the electorate. This approach has been the norm since the early 1900s. So, both in word and deed, public accountability has been a core principle for longer than anyone reading this can remember.

More recently, state and federal governments clawed back some of that power from local districts, especially through test-based accountability policies. One driving force behind the push for state and federal accountability was rising education spending from these levels of government. Taxpayers wanted to know what they were getting for their money, and test results were one way of measuring the return on their investments.

Even if one prefers a heavier dose of market accountability—giving families more choice—the government is still an important partner. If we want families to have more choices, then we should also want them to have more information, which the government is well positioned to provide.

Today’s voucher programs are unwinding our accountability traditions. They’re allowing families to use public funds to send their children to schools that do not operate under elected school boards. These schools are subject to little, if any, test-based accountability, and they need only meet the minimal bar of accreditation to participate. The recent crop of universal vouchers even fails in providing the information needed for market accountability. Yes, some students in some voucher states will be required to take some type of standardized test. However, it’s unclear whether and how these results will be reported, and even if they are widely available, parents will not be able to compare across disparate tests.

Voucher advocates sometimes point to programs like Social Security and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) as programs that provide benefits to eligible recipients to make their own consumption decisions with few strings attached. But these programs give little reason to overthrow the public accountability tradition in education. This is basically saying, “yes, our voucher program ends the public accountability tradition in an area so important that the Founding Fathers and every state constitution includes it, but that’s okay…because we also give money to the elderly to make sure they can buy groceries.” If you find that logic confusing, I don’t blame you.

The Great Unwinding

It is no exaggeration to say that universal vouchers are unwinding two centuries of public education tradition, from the nation’s founding days to the present. We are not just talking about any traditions. These are traditions with roots in the First Amendment and our state constitutions, and ones that have shaped the foundational contours of K-12 education in this country.

Voucher advocates might point out that the Supreme Court has reversed itself on vouchers in recent years, giving reason to believe that today’s programs are legally permissible. But U.S. and state constitutions aren’t just legal documents to be interpreted by lawyers and judges. They convey larger, foundational principles and traditions at play that have guided American life, including education, for centuries. The public broadly supports these traditions, regardless of what the courts say.

We do need to upend traditions from time to time. Brown v. Board upended the disgraceful mistreatment of and discrimination against Black Americans. That was a widely accepted step forward. Is it time to end church-state separation, public accountability, and anti-discrimination? You be the judge.