“我一生都在支持共和党，而且我非常保守，”松树学区主管史蒂夫·克勒格斯通在一段Instagram短视频中对着镜头说道。“但我要告诉你，当格雷格·阿博特把我们的学校出卖给亿万富翁时，我就彻底对他的领导感到失望了。”在得克萨斯州州长竞选中，克勒格斯通将投票给阿博特的民主党对手——州众议员吉娜·希诺霍萨。
“I’ve been voting Republican my whole life. I’m super conservative,” Pine Tree superintendent Steve Clugston tells the camera in an Instagram reel. “I’m gonna tell you what, when Greg Abbott sold us out to the billionaires and sold out our schools, I’m done with his leadership.”In the Texas governor’s race, Clugston is voting for Abbott’s Democratic opponent, State Representative Gina Hinojosa.
松树公立学校区位于得克萨斯州东部的小城市朗维尤，这座城市在地图上呈现鲜红色，地处达拉斯和路易斯安那州什里夫波特这两座大城市之间。其4400名学生中，大多数来自经济困难家庭。周五，在松树足球队于灯光下大胜对手的几个小时前，我见到了克勒格斯通，当时他正在自己的农场。“我妻子是老师，女儿是老师，女婿也是老师，两个姐妹都是老师，而我的姐夫则是一名退休的学区主管。所以可以说，教育几乎已经融入我们的血液了，”他通过电话告诉我。
The Pine Tree public school district is in the bright red, small city of Longview in East Texas, between the big cities of Dallas and Shreveport, La. The majority of its 4,400 students are economically disadvantaged. When I caught up with Clugston on Friday, hours before the Pine Tree football team trounced its opponents under the lights, he was at his farm. “My wife’s a teacher, my daughter’s a teacher, my son-in-law’s a teacher, both my sisters are teachers, my brother-in law’s a retired superintendent. So I’d say education’s kind of in our blood,” he told me over the phone.
克勒格斯通告诉我，他已经厌倦了得州其他保守派偏离财政常识和直言不讳的原则；他甚至曾以独立保守派的身份竞选得克萨斯州参议员。他对得州今年早些时候实施的“教育自由账户”（Texas Education Freedom Accounts）计划尤其感到震惊。该计划将州政府的资金存入家庭账户，供他们在公立学校体系之外使用：私立学校学生最高可获得近10500美元，残障儿童最高可达3万美元，而在家上学的学生则最高可获得2000美元。
Clugston told me he’s sick of his fellow Texas conservatives straying from their principles of fiscal common sense and straight talk; he even attempted a run for the Texas State Senate as an independent conservative. He is particularly appalled by Texas’ voucher program, known as Texas Education Freedom Accounts, which went into effect earlier this year. This program puts state money in accounts for Texas families to use outside the public school system: up to nearly $10,500 for children enrolling in private school, up to $30,000 for children with disabilities and up to $2,000 for those who are home-schooled.
得克萨斯州政府无法干预接受教育券的机构所教授的课程，而参与该计划的学生也可以基于宗教、残障状况等任何理由歧视申请人。得州的教育券面向所有人开放，无论经济状况如何，尽管贫困学生会被优先考虑。
The State of Texas has no say over the curriculum taught at the institutions that accept vouchers, and participating schools can discriminate against applicants for any number of reasons, including religion and disability status. Texas’ vouchers are universal, which means anyone can apply for them, regardless of financial means, though poorer students have been prioritized.
今年约有70%的代金券领取者已经就读于私立学校或家庭学校。仅今年，代金券就耗资约10亿美元，最终每年可能高达44亿美元。虽然代金券的资金来自与公立学校预算分开的专项预算，但州政府对公立学校的投入却未能跟上通货膨胀的步伐。
Around 70 percent of this year’s voucher recipients were already enrolled in private or home- school. Vouchers are costing the state about a billion dollars this year alone, and could ultimately end up costing $4.4 billion annually. While funding for vouchers comes from a budget that is separate from the public school pot, the state’s funding for public schools has not kept up with inflation.
据《休斯敦纪事报》报道，德克萨斯州的公立学校今年预计将损失2.27亿美元，同时还要面临裁员。由于代金券将资金从公立学校中抽走，可能会有更多公立学校被迫关闭。在克勒格斯通看来，代金券“是一项为富人提供的价值10亿美元的赠予计划，而且完全没有问责机制——完全没有任何问责。”
Texas public schools will lose a projected $227 million just this year, as they shed head count, according to The Houston Chronicle. More public schools may close as a result of vouchers siphoning that money away from them. In Clugston’s opinion, vouchers are “a billion-dollar giveaway program for the rich and we’re gonna have no accountability in it. Zero.”
希诺霍萨将拯救公立教育作为其州长竞选的核心议题，这也是她投身政坛的初衷。她的孩子曾就读于一所濒临关闭的学校，她将自己的政治历程描述为：从一位忧心忡忡的家长，到地方学校董事会成员，再到德克萨斯州众议员。如果当选，希诺霍萨承诺要“终结代金券骗局”。长期以来，尽管K-12公立教育的考试成绩持续下滑，且新冠疫情带来了诸多问题，但两大政党却几乎从不讨论这一议题，这让我感到十分沮丧。
Hinojosa has made saving public education central to her campaign for governor, and it is what got her started in politics. Her child’s school was on the brink of closure, and she describes her political trajectory as concerned parent, to local school board member, to Texas House member. If elected, Hinojosa has vowed to “end the voucher scam.”I have long been frustrated at the way both parties barely talk about K-12 public education, despite plunging test scores and post-Covid woes.
然而，政治家们之所以不愿多谈教育，是因为选民并不关心它。希诺霍萨关于学校的论述之所以能超越愤怒的公立学校家长和教师，产生更广泛的影响，是因为她将代金券的通过，与特朗普时代共和党所面临的更广泛问题联系了起来：腐败以及亿万富翁的过度权力。
But the reason politicians don’t talk more about education is because voters don’t care about it. What makes Hinojosa’s message on schools effective beyond irate public school parents and educators is that she ties the passage of vouchers to larger themes plaguing Republicans in the age of Trump: corruption and the outsize power of billionaires.
代金券计划在得克萨斯州议会多次失败，而农村地区的共和党人往往倾向于支持民主党，以阻止这些措施。在农村地区，“择校自由”即便借助代金券，也往往只是海市蜃楼。那里几乎没有私立学校，而公立学校通常是当地最大的雇主，也是小镇生活的核心；我为这封简报采访的几乎每位得州人表示，他们对《周五夜现场》的推崇是真实存在的。
Vouchers failed in the Texas Legislature multiple times, with rural Republicans tending to side with Democrats to block the measures. In rural areas, “school choice,” even with vouchers, tends to be a mirage. There are few private schools, and public schools are often the biggest local employers and the heart of small-town life; nearly every Texan I spoke to for this newsletter said the reverence for “Friday Night Lights” is real.
当州长格雷格·阿伯特无法通过正当途径推动代金券计划时，他决定在初选中挑战那些反对该政策的共和党州议员。阿伯特从支持代金券的宾夕法尼亚州亿万富翁杰夫·亚斯处获得了1200万美元资金，成功让大多数他支持的候选人当选，并于2025年推动了代金券计划的通过，正如《华盛顿邮报》所报道的那样。
When Gov. Greg Abbott couldn’t get vouchers passed the honorable way, he decided to primary Republican state legislators who opposed the policy. Abbott took $12 million from Jeff Yass, a pro-voucher Pennsylvania billionaire, got most of his preferred candidates into office, and got vouchers passed in 2025, as The Washington Post noted.
其他州参与代金券计划的学生成果明显褒贬不一，但亚斯对此毫不在意。“如果母亲或家长希望孩子从一所学校转到另一所学校，谁他妈的有资格阻止他们？”亚斯告诉《华盛顿邮报》，“我根本不在乎研究怎么说。”亚斯并非唯一在“孤星之州”干预代金券计划的亿万富翁。德克萨斯州的宗教界亿万富翁蒂姆·邓恩、法里斯和威尔克斯家族多年来也向支持代金券的候选人投入了大量资金。
The outcomes for students participating in voucher programs in other states have been decidedly mixed, but Yass doesn’t give a rip. “If the mother or the parent wants the kid to go from one school to another, who the hell is anyone to tell them not to?”Yass told The Post. “I don’t care what the studies say.”Yass isn’t the only billionaire who meddled in vouchers in the Lone Star State. The religious Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris and Dan Wilks, have also poured money into pro-voucher candidates over the years.
正如《德克萨斯论坛报》所解释的那样：“邓恩还是米德兰古典学院的创始人。根据该学院网站的说法，这所私立学校为其约600名K-12学生提供‘基于圣经世界观的经典教育’。（值得注意的是，德克萨斯州许多精英、知名且排名靠前的私立学校今年都拒绝接受代金券。）”一些代金券支持者声称，德克萨斯州为表现不佳学校中的弱势儿童提供了更多选择。
As The Texas Tribune explains, “Dunn is also the founder of Midland Classical Academy, a private school that offers its approximately 600 K-12 students a ‘Classical Education from a Biblical Worldview,’ according to its website.” (It’s worth noting that many of the elite, popular and highly ranked private schools in Texas refused to accept vouchers this year.) Some voucher proponents claim that Texas offers more choice to underprivileged children in underperforming schools.
但我们掌握的亚利桑那州等实施普遍代金券计划的其他州的数据表明，这些计划实际上将资金重新分配到了城市及郊区收入最高、教育程度最高的邮政编码区域。亚利桑那州的一家ABC电视台发现，家长们用代金券购买的东西五花八门，从蹦床公园到滑雪票，无所不包。
But the data we have on other states with universal voucher programs, like Arizona’s, suggest that they are redistributing money to the highest income and most educated ZIP codes in cities and suburbs. An Arizona ABC station found that parents were spending their voucher money on everything from trampoline parks to ski tickets.
在爱荷华州，其私立学校普遍代金券计划与德克萨斯州类似，民主党州长候选人兼现任审计长罗布·桑德也指出了代金券计划与特殊利益集团及腐败之间的类似关联。“当前的学校代金券计划公然为浪费、欺诈和滥用纳税人资金提供了机会，”桑德在他的竞选网站上解释道。
In Iowa, which has a universal voucher program for private schools that’s similar to Texas’, the Democratic candidate for governor and the current auditor, Rob Sand, has made a similar connection between vouchers, special interests and corruption. “The current school voucher program is an open invitation to waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Sand explains on his campaign website.
桑德在“人人有责”这一标题下阐述了他对教育券的立场，其中他还谈到了对举报人的保护以及禁止股票交易。通过此举，桑德意在表明：即使你并不关心课堂上到底发生了什么，也完全有理由对纽约一家名为奥德赛（Odyssey）的公司感到愤怒——该公司负责管理他所在州的教育券项目，据称获得了这项工作的“特殊优待”合同。
Sand lists his voucher stance under the headline Accountability for All, where he also talks about protections for whistle-blowers and banning stock trading. By doing so, Sand is saying that you don’t have to care about what’s going on in the classroom to be outraged that a New York-based company called Odyssey, which manages his state’s voucher program, allegedly got a “sweetheart” deal for the work.
作为审计员，桑德发现，该公司“在获得无招标合同不到一个月后，就将费率提高了一倍多，使纳税人额外损失了270万美元。”（奥德赛公司与亚斯（Yass）存在关联，同时也负责管理得克萨斯州的教育券体系。）无论你对公立学校持何种看法，都很难不对教育券项目这种根本性的不公平感到愤怒：这些项目将资金发放给那些无需为所有学生提供教育的学校。
As auditor, Sand found that the company “more than doubled its rate less than a month afterg their no-bid contract, costing taxpayers an additional $2.7 million.” (Odyssey, which has ties to Yass, also administers the voucher system in Texas.) Whatever you think about public schools, it is difficult not to seethe at the fundamental unfairness of voucher programs that give money to schools that don’t have to educate all students.
《得克萨斯观察家》发现，在该州获得教育券资金批准的291所私立学校中，超过90%是宗教或信仰类学校，“其中超过100所学校要求或优先录取同信仰的学生，另有超过60所学校根据自身数据表明，制定了歧视L.G.B.T.Q.+学生的书面政策。”尽管得克萨斯州的教育券优先面向残疾学生，《观察家》也指出，他们分析的大多数得克萨斯私立学校都缺乏特殊教育服务。
The Texas Observer found that of 291 private schools approved for voucher funds from the state, over 90 percent were religious or faith-based schools, “more than 100 of those schools require or prioritize for admission students of the same faith, and more than 60 have a written policy that discriminates against L.G.B.T.Q.+ students, the schools’ own data shows.”Though the Texas vouchers prioritize students with disabilities, The Observer also noted that most of the private Texas schools they analyzed lack special education services.
《达拉斯晨报》的一项分析发现，数千名残疾学生最终将州政府的资金退还，部分原因是私立学校要么拒绝接收他们，要么甚至根本没有回应他们的申请。
A Dallas Morning News analysis found that thousands of students with disabilities returned state money, in part because private schools either rejected them or didn’t even respond to their applications.
我在得克萨斯州和艾奥瓦州采访的一些教育工作者告诉我，他们早已看到有学生因私立学校或家庭教育的实际体验远不如宣传的那样，而重新回到公立学校。这项立法中另一个令人愤怒的方面是，得克萨斯州的公立学校仍被要求为选择教育券的家庭进行残疾评估，这无疑给它们本就有限的资源带来了巨大压力。
Some educators I spoke to in both Texas and Iowa told me that they’d already seen students ricocheting back to public schools because their private or home-school experience wasn’t all it was chalked up to be. Another outrageous part of this legislation is that Texas public schools are still required to do the disability testing for families that choose vouchers, and it’s straining their limited resources.
当学校代金券付诸全民公投时，它一直不受欢迎；在投票中，它总是以失败告终。令人愤怒的是，那些出于意识形态动机的亿万富翁——他们很可能从未送自己的孩子上公立学校——却成功推动了这项政策。
When put to a public vote, school vouchers have been unpopular; they’re perennial losers on the ballot. It’s maddening that ideologically motivated billionaires, who likely never sent their own children to public schools, have been able to push this policy through.
根据《纽约时报》与锡耶纳大学最新的民意调查结果，希诺霍萨的支持率领先四个百分点，而桑德则领先十一个百分点。显然，得克萨斯州的竞争更为激烈，但经过一周与当地家长的交流，我对此持谨慎乐观的态度。雷贝卡·鲍斯自称是一名保守派基督徒，与丈夫和两个孩子一起住在达拉斯-沃斯堡地区。她告诉我，她对当前公立学校政策的状况极为不满，以至于自己都不确定该投哪一票。
According to the latest New York Times/Siena University polling, Hinojosa is up by four points, and Sand is up by 11. Texas is obviously the tougher battle, but after spending the week talking to parents there, I’m cautiously optimistic. Rebekah Baus, who described herself as a conservative Christian and lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with her husband and two kids, told me she is so upset about the state of public school policy that she doesn’t know which way she is voting.
鲍斯表示，得克萨斯州政府试图假装“我们的公立学校体系正在失败，但事实上，我们才是通过未能给予其充足资金而让公立学校体系失败的人。” 附注：农村地区学校往往从代金券计划中受益最少。如果您的乡村学校正在关闭，或因任何原因（包括学生人数减少）面临关闭风险，我希望听到您的声音：请随时与我联系。
The State of Texas, Baus said, is trying to pretend “our public school system is failing, but in the reality, we’re failing our public school system by not funding them properly.”End Notes Rural schools tend to be particularly ill served by vouchers. If your rural school is closing, or at risk of closure for any reason (including a declining population of children), I want to hear from you: drop me a line.
ProPublica 在代金券以及代金券和私立学校缺乏监管的问题上做了出色的报道。他们曾尝试创办一所假私立学校作为实验，结果发现相关要求极其宽松：“如果我们愿意，现在就可以在两州注册学生。阿肯色州甚至建议我们的学校如何通过该州的代金券式计划获得公共资金。” 他们还制作了一份测验，展示“有多少个州欢迎任何怀有梦想和心跳的人创办学校。” 您可以在此处进行测试，结果一定会让您震惊。
ProPublica has been doing excellent work on vouchers and the lack of oversight into vouchers and private schools. They tried to start a fake private school as an experiment and found that the requirements were so scant, “we could enroll students in two states right now, if we wanted to. Arkansas even suggested ways our school could accept public money through the state’s voucher-style program.”They even created a quiz to show how “many states invite anyone with a dream and a heartbeat to start a school.”Take it here, you’ll be shocked.
鉴于我超爱莎伦·霍根（Sharon Horgan）的剧集《Catastrophe》，所以当发现我也喜欢她HBO的新剧《Youth》时，我一点也不意外。霍根在剧中饰演亚历克斯（Alex），一位离异的文学经纪人，她一边努力重新开启约会生活，一边为“三明治一代”的烦恼而头疼：18岁的女儿迟迟不愿独立，前夫几乎不再参与育儿，父母的健康状况也不容乐观。
Given that I adored the Sharon Horgan show “Catastrophe,” I was not surprised to find that I also love her new HBO show “Youth.”Horgan plays Alex, a divorced literary agent who is struggling with sandwich generation headaches while she tries to get back into dating.
霍根总能将生活的混乱与狼狈转化为既幽默又真实的呈现，而且我超想要她一半的穿搭。（如果有人能找到她在第一集里穿的那双短靴或完美剪裁的短款卫衣，请务必告诉我！）
Her 18-year-old won’t launch, her ex-husband pretty much stopped parenting and her parents are in poor health. Horgan always manages to make the mess of life into something funny and real, and I want half her outfits. (If someone can source her booties or the perfect cropped sweatshirt she wears in Episode 1, please tell me.)