This is great news for those who have been calling attention to the corporate reform assault on public schools. We couldn’t gain attention when Obama and Duncan were promoting privatization and bashing teachers. But Betsy DeVos stripped away the pretense of “the civil rights issue of our time.” All you have to do is look at the patented billionaire smirk, listen to her prattle about public schools as a “dead end,” and look at the fringe right groups she hangs out with, like ALEC. At last, the Democrats are beginning to get it. The privatization pushers in the Democratic Party will have to explain why they are in step with DeVos’s policy agenda.
Before DeVos, the Network for Public Education had 22,000 members. Now it has more than 350,000 and is growing.
DEVOS BECOMES DIGITAL LIGHTNING ROD FOR DEMOCRATS: First it was Karl Rove. Then it was the Koch brothers. Now, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has taken over as Senate Democrats’ top online bogeyman. POLITICO’s Maggie Severns reports that anti-DeVos statements, petitions and especially fundraising emails have become a staple of Democratic digital campaigns in 2017. Emails citing DeVos are raising money at a faster clip than others and driving engagement from supporters.
– Some examples: Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly’s Facebook post announcing opposition to DeVos’ nomination as Education secretary was the first sign for some Democratic observers that DeVos had political traction. Donnelly and his fellow Democratic senators up for reelection in 2018 have seized on that energy with a salvo of emails soliciting small-dollar online donations.
– DeVos played foil for Montana Sen. Jon Tester when he solicited donations in May for himself and Rob Quist, the Democrat who was defeated in a special election for Montana’s at-large House seat. DeVos’ family “is spending big to influence tomorrow’s election,” Tester wrote in one email after the DeVoses donated to Greg Gianforte’s campaign.
-“For a lot of people, Betsy DeVos has really come to be a symbol of everything that’s wrong with Trump’s approach to government,” said Stephanie Grasmick, a partner at the Democratic digital consulting firm Rising Tide Interactive. DeVos is a prime example of Rising Tide’s new use of “social listening tools,” adopted for this election cycle, that monitor the web for trends. The technology is used by corporations but has yet to be fully embraced by political campaigns.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yep. She’s the best thing going for us. Big money continues to be our biggest problem.
Excellent post, Diane. YES, the DEMs indeed SOLD OUT Public Schools. Thanks, Billaries and Obama. You sure did our public schools in and sold them to the highest bidder.
I’ve been anticipating this for a while. I past her face on every education issue I fight. Wonder what Arne has to say about her.
Diane My eyes automatically smiled when I read this post.
Proof that tech tyrants and DFER are cannibals- they ate the party of the people. Either they’re too lazy to create their own party, too cheap or recognize their ineptitude to build anything. They are exploitive destroyers.
Linda,
It is easier to buy an existing party than to start a new one
Hiding behind the historical reputation of the party they feed on, hasn’t resulted in party wins. They rely on deception and manipulation. And, they’re thieves with no morality.
The cannibals talk grit, taking risks and competitive boldness- it’s all blather to distract.
You wrote: “Before DeVos, the Network for Public Education had 22,000 members. Now it has more than 350,000 and is growing.” Wow!
Amazing!
That is incredible!
Diane,
There is no lightening rod. Democrats have been thrilled to participate with bipartisanship with the GOP to destroy public education . There are very few Democrats who oppose charter schools and nearly all of them are just fine with APPR being based on standardized test scores.
No, the Democrats and the GOP are NOT on our side for the most part.
There is plenty of lightening in the air, but no rods at all to attract it.
NF,
Disagree. DeVos has brought unprecedented attention to the assault on public schools.
Yes, Diane, but Democrats almost unanimously believe that “charter schools are public schools.” They’ll issue some press releases against taxpayer funding of De Vos’ most egregious “Christian” schools, while happily supporting increased funding for charters. It’s nothing but deception and mis-direction.
One of the dirty secrets of US politics is that the current mis-leadership of the Democratic Party is far happier with the Repugs in power – they’re a phenomenal fund-raising resource – than they would be with an active pro-public school/pro-single payer health insurance constituency, and majority control.
Despite transparently bogus talk about “The Resistance” (there should be a trademark symbol after that) I think the Dims are happy where they are right now: eliciting anti-Russian hysteria, supporting endless foreign interventions and privatization, while shrieking about the orange-haired Boogey Man. It’s great for fund raising and meaningless MoveOn petitions, and guarantees that the Democratic Party continues its devolution into a legacy Party restricted to a ever shrinking/unengaged urban and college town base. That’s what happens after decades of fealty to the donor class.
The cruelly ironic thing is that these are the same people who lecture the Left wing of the party about what’s politically realistic, when in fact they are highly-credentialed LOSERS who have lost all three branches of the federal government, two thirds of state governments, and have lower poll numbers than the repulsive sociopath in the White House.
As Chiara correctly points out below, the Democrats are cynically using this as a ploy, just as they reliably betray the union support they receive on other labor issues.
Actually, when you think of what a lightning rod actually does – harmlessly channeling tremendous energy into the ground – it’s the perfect analogy for De Vos and the Democrats: all the energy generated by opposition to Trump/De Vos will be “grounded” after the Democrats have fully taken advantage of the fund-raising opportunities.
“Believe charter schools are public”. That is a belief in a demonstrably false lie, just like defense contractors,
Blackwater and Halliburton, described as “public”, is a demonstrably false lie.
Unfortunately Democrats won’t follow thru. They don’t support public schools either.
All they’re doing is using public school kids and parents to raise money for their campaigns. It doesn’t have anything to do with our schools or our children.
Who is the last pro-public school candidate the Democratic Party backed? Wolf in Pennsylvania won but he’s independently wealthy. I don’t think he needed the Democratic Party.
Chiara, I thought the Democratic nominee for Governor in Virginia seemed promising. Also, Senator Kaine in Virginia at least had some positive things to say about public schools and teachers during the presidential campaign. Also, my memory is that Gavin Newsom (San Fran mayor) has been outspokenly on our side. And, of course, there were have been some courageous state legislators in Washington state. Bottom line is that they are few and far between, largely because the money is loaded on the other side of the divide. And I’m still waiting for the first politician to LOSE his or her seat based on education policy.
I basically voted for Clinton because of Kaine. I think he would have been a great advocate for children in public schools.
There are people who just get it on a gut level and he’s one of them.
This is a crazy idea I know but how about we hire someone with actual experience in government? Someone who wants to be there instead of yearning to turn government into the private sector?
It’ll be great. People who want to work in the private sector can go do that and people who want to work in government can do that!
We could have TWO sectors, peacefully and productively co-existing in ONE country!
Betsy DeVos can run Amway and someone who actually values public education can run that. It’ll work out great.
I get really disgusted. Thanks for your optimism though.
agreed: so many who get into office on the Democratic ticket and then push charters and teacher blame as if our public schools are worthless
I am running for school board in Columbus and everyone I talk to knows and dislikes Betsy DeVos. I use her as a example of what is wrong with reformers, charters and vouchers and
the continuing testing culture. It is time for us to respond to our Democratic legislators in the same way. Be sure to insist that they do not ally with DeVos.
And back that up with studies that confirm her stance is ludicrous. ( Look to this blog if you need examples!)
Since Democrats are using public school kids and parents to raise money, maybe when one of them gets to DC they could advocate for public schools. They’d really stick out- they’ll be the only one doing it. Might even be good for their career- not a whole lot of competition in that area. One passionate person could really own advocacy for 45 million students.
Otherwise it’s just like when Democrats raise money from rank and file union members- they’re using these people.
How many public school advocates, parents, students or teachers have Congressional Democrats met with since Trump was elected?
Because DeVos sure isn’t meeting with any of them, so that leaves Democrats in Congress as the only DC advocates for 45 million public school students.
We supported the campaigns of the current Democratic members of Congress. When do they start supporting us? At what point, exactly, do these people stand up? How many campaigns, how many millions of dollars raised? Can they give us some estimated timeline when this support might start?
Betsy DeVos is just a political appointee. Everyone who saw her 30 years of work in Michigan knew she was opposed to public schools and wouldn’t support them. Lost cause. She doesn’t even meet with public school advocates although she holds special meetings with charter and voucher advocates where they get exclusive access.
The better question is how do (elected) members of Congress justify not supporting public schools?
They’re the people elected and supported by public school graduates and the parents of public school students. How do they justify abandoning the vast majority of the schools in their own districts and states?
Can they point to a single, specific effort they’ve made since January on behalf of students in public schools? It’s June. That’s half the year gone and they haven’t done anything other than raise money for their own campaigns by using public school advocates and students as a battering ram against DeVos.
The Trump/DeVos budget specifically targets kids in existing public schools for cuts while increasing funding for kids in charters and private schools. The federal share of my local school funding has gone down over the last 10 years although we have more lower income students. Where were Democrats the last decade? 3/4’s of them are returned to Congress year after year and year after year public schools take the brunt of cuts so DC can expand their priority “choice” agenda.
They’re using us to raise money to get elected and the minute they’re elected they bail on us.
A couple of pro-public school Democratic governors were elected fairly recently- one in PA and one in Louisiana. If you’re donating to politicians send it to state level campaigns directly. DC is a lost cause. They didn’t attend public schools themselves, they don’t send their children or grandchildren to public schools and they have no real stake or interest in them. They don’t even hire public school graduates to direct public education policy. It’s tough to find one of them who attended a public COLLEGE let alone k-12. The entire US Supreme Court came out of 3 ivy league colleges – that’s the lived experience of what? .0001% of Americans? They seem out of touch because THEY ARE out of touch.
Jason Botel is supposedly the “public school supporter” at the US Dept of Education. He has the usual ed reform pedigree- TFA, charter schools, charter school lobbying org- he checks all the required boxes.
That’s who we got. Lucky us! When he went to the national PTA meeting – DeVos didn’t go, they send the second string to public school events- he spent his entire speech promoting charters and vouchers.
They can’t even bother with public schools when they’re speaking to public school parents.
Compare that to DeVos special access meetings with charter supporters, where she lavished praise on charters and basically presented them with a quid pro quo- they’ll get more money for charters if they join with her in cutting funding for public school students. What is DeVos doing this week, after spending last week speaking exclusively to charter school supporters? She’s holding special access meetings for Catholic schools.
They don’t even hide this anti-public school agenda. It’s just another day at work in DC.
This kind of capture doesn’t happen because of one President. This has been going on a LONG time- almost 2 decades- and it gets worse every year. 90% of US students attend public schools and the US Department of Education can’t even bother to meet with their advocates- not parents, not students, not teachers, not principals.
You’re right, of course, Chiara. It leads to the assumption that Reformer money is so great and powerful and the misinformation so prevalent that Democrats have a continued smoke screen to do nothing for public schools. Will we ever reach a point where it makes sense not to support the lesser of two evils? For me, our national teacher unions have been a huge part of the problem. Short-sighted and reactionary on so many issues. But, positive news of the day is the explosive growth for the NPE. Huge amounts of votes are the only way to combat huge amounts of money. I hope anyone associated with Democrats for Education Reform are disqualified from any support of NPE and those agree with our education agenda.
Really confused as to whom you’re referring, Catherine, but as you’re replying to Chiara and/or my posts I’ll note that I am not in any way an anti-Democratic party troll (nor is Chiara). If you’ve read my (our) posts through the years on here, you could fairly label us anti-Education Reform “trolls” in the same way that Diane is. I have a special disdain for George “soft bigotry of low expectations” Bush and excoriated Secretaries Paige, Spellings, and DeVos as I have King and Duncan. Duncan, however, along with other highly visible and powerful Democrats (like Cuomo, Booker, and Michael Bennet…almost forgot Obama), have been as destructive to our positions as any Republicans. You’re right that this is not a party issue. The attack, like so much of the national legislation, has been bipartisan…and often (near) unanimous. Our union leadership has also been incredibly disappointing. That’s not a partisan statement. That’s a statement of policy. You may also note that the rare politicians who give me hope (Northram, Kaine, Newsom, and state legislators of Washington) are all Democrats, but it’s not because they are Democrats. It’s because of the things they have said. Again, maybe I’m misunderstanding your complaint, but it appears to be misplaced in this thread.
Ohio Algebra II Teacher I appreciate the clarification.
All good, Catherine.
You may recall that the NY Times had an article saying that DeVos had made surprising choices, like Candace Jackson as acting assistant secretary for civil rights, because she is gay; it didn’t mention that she is opposed to affirmative action and antifeminist. So what’s the surprise? And because she appointed Jason Botel, the alleged “liberal” who headed up a KIPP school and worked as an education advisor to Trump. What’s the surprise?
Diane It seems to me from reading some of these posts that some act like trolls and seem to think you and this blog are about pushing democratic-party-only ideas?
Hello out there! It’s about public education and its right-relationship to democracy, and both parties are at fault in some regard (though the Republicans are really “out there” presently); but the party-only ideology is just that–an ideology–which, in my view at least, is not what this blog is about.
CBK,
Since the GOP endorsed the privatization in its platform and in Trump’s budget, it is enabling the destruction of public education.
Some Democrats join this crusade: Rahm Emanuel, and various Dem members of Congress and governors. But privatization is not endorsed by the Dem party
Diane Yes, but my point is that you are not a democratic party ideologue–judging from the criticism here aimed at both parties when the issue is education. Some here write as if they can think only in terms of party politics. Like health care, the environment, and many other issues, it’s the ISSUE and not the PARTY that is most significant.
True, no one was harder on Obama and Duncan re education policy. They paved the way for DeVos
Betsy DeVosVerified account @BetsyDeVosED Jun 13
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What a privilege to spend the morning at #NCSC17 with @dyrnwyn and thousands of charter school educators!
What a shame that none of the thousands of public employees at the US Department of Education can find the time to do a Q and A with public school supporters.
Oh, well. Maybe if we send more money to campaigns they’ll have a change of heart. Maybe we can get a meeting with the people we pay if we raise 30 million dollars and send it to them. Like a bribe.