Mercedes Schneider updates the latest speculation about Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education.
Eva is out. Rhee is very controversial. Robinson is a Bush retread. DeVos is inside in the rail.
She adds a few more names to the list.
DFER, by the way, released a statement saying that no Democrat should serve in a Trump administration, even though his agenda of school choice and competition measures the one they have pushed for 10 years.
All, of course, are of one mind about the need to introduce more privatization and competition into education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There are differences.
Democrats for Education Reform want regulated privatization and Donald Trump wants unregulated privatization.
What’s interesting is neither side in ed reform has mentioned existing public schools at all. Not a high priority in DC circles- that much seems clear.
There’s no mention of public schools because the intent is to quietly weaken and undermine them to the point they can be “drowned in the bathtub,” in the immortal words of Grover Norquist.
It kind of stinks that we have yet another US President who didn’t attend public schools.
Three in a row.
They don’t even go to public colleges anymore.
There was a time that the attraction of a free or very low cost Public college system, adequately funded, attracted the best and the brightest students. They had high competitive admissions standards and a back door into the programs from the community college system for late bloomers.
I can not help but think education being an equalizer, those that want an unequal society have underfunded Public Universities to give an even greater advantage to wealth.
What college systems are you thinking of? The one that springs to my mind based on your description is City College in NYC. Was it privatization that ended this prelapsarian period of adequately funded colleges attended by the best and the brightest, or was it democratization, i.e. demands for open admissions in response to extreme racial imbalances at these schools?
How about the entire state University of California system . . Glad you mentioned CCNY part of CUNY,which had one of the finest engineering programs in the country. How about almost every state university system in the country had the state assuming the bulk of financing costs for in state students.. Out of state tuition was a subsidy to instate students and a tribute to the quality of education offered at many of these institutions. . Costs that are now being transferred by and large to students .
The operative word was low cost . As for open admissions that did impact CUNY . I believe the cities fiscal crisis was a far more significant cause of the instituting of tuition. . The roots of that crisis another discussion for another board. Suffice it to say that open admissions did not apply to SUNY. The tuition rates at CUNY and SUNY have been on par for at least 3 decades. .I believe test based standards for admission were brought back in the early 90s free tuition wasn’t .
Unfortunately the graph only goes back to 87. It probably would be more useful to go back to the mid seventies or early eighties.
https://tcf.org/content/commentary/graph-as-state-funding-for-higher-education-collapses-students-pay-the-difference/
I was an undergraduate at CCNY when tuition was instituted in September of 1976, a direct result of the city’s fiscal crisis, which in reality was a banker’s coup and, along with California’s Proposition 13 in 1978, the opening frontal attack against the New Deal. An event of underappreciated significance, it marked the beginning of the neoliberal class war we’ve been living under ever since.
Fifteen thousand NYC K-12 teachers were laid off in 1975-76. Art, music and after-school programs were gutted, and the system thrown into chaos, which was later used by so-called reform ideologues to “prove” the “failure” of the public school system. It took almost twenty years for it to begin to recover.
So very interesting that cutbacks in state funding (which continue to this day) and the start of tuition in a previously free system of higher education began when the skin complexion of the students began to darken…
Michael Fiorillo
I actually graduated Queens College in 1973. the last graduating class before open enrollment and several years before tuition . Tuition that is over 7X higher today, than when first implemented. That is almost double the growth in medium income over that period.
You are correct about the bank coup . The crises had a lot more to do with the Banking finances of NYCHA , which was embattled in a war to save the burning city, than it had to do with imbalances of the operating budget. A topic in itself .
So the other day Diane proposed a rather out there theory. About the Russians rigging the election. I wont go as far out in my conspiracy theory.
The “Powell Document”.
https://junctrebellion.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/how-the-american-university-was-killed-in-five-easy-steps/
Most reformers are pro common core, so Trump’s populist stand on that will turn most off even though that’s a state issue. They view this as a means for states lowering standards.
And DFER’s statement shouldn’t come as a surprise. People and organizations are multi-dimensional, not the strawmen you create. Trump could negatively impact the charter sector by enabling more low quality operators (something most reformers don’t want). He may also actually support the concept of privatization, which most reformers don’t view as a “feature” of charters and vouchers.
Finally, DFERs, and for that matter most people I know that are involved in reform efforts, are Democrats first and very unhappy with Trump’s election. Our student populations (largely low income and minority) are also very upset about the election.
If you’re reading most reformer news sources and blogs right now, they are almost completely anti-Trump. As I’ve pointed out before, the fact that conservatives support reform does not imply that reformers support conservativism.
So-called reformers are worried that Trump will derail their charter school gravy train by giving vouchers to Catholic and Christian schools instead.
Three other points: first, it’s a real laugh to hear that charter supporters are concerned about low-quality operators, since their entire existence is based on little or no regulation, which opens the door wide to looters and fly-by-night operators. If they were serious about quality education, they would insist on transparency and outside oversight, not the the rubber-stamp authorizers they currently enjoy.
Second: for you to say that charter operators don’t support privatization means you are either deceiving us, or yourself, or both. Charters are by definition private entities, as they always claim when their sweated teachers try to unionize under public employee labor law, and as labor relations boards and courts have consistently ruled.
Finally, as privatizing, union-busting entities undermining a public good, charters are inherently reactionary, no matter the bogus, misdirecting social justice rhetoric they spout. As any seasoned observer of politics can tell you, don’t listen to what they say; watch what they do.
Michael,
It’s hard to take you seriously when you talk about the “gravy train” despite the fact that most charters are not-for-profit, and state nonsense like “by definition private entities” when the laws that create them say specifically that they are public schools. When you say “by definition”, you apparently mean “by my definition”.
Also, your definition of social justice is about schools as employers. Mine is about schools as educators. Which is their purpose?
Quote: “The National Labor Relations Board decided in two separate cases last week that — as far as federal labor law is concerned — charter schools are not public schools but private corporations.
“http://www.governing.com/topics/education/NLRB-Charter-Schools-Are-Private-Corporations-Not-Public-Schools.html
Joe,
The NLRB decision was narrow in regards to employee organizing. Most charters would agree with their assessment that they are not obligated to collective bargaining, and are therefore not “public employers” within that scope.
However, the decision was a partisan one, and the majority opinion’s statement that charters are not created by the state is patently untrue. Charters in NY (which is what that applied to) are “education corporations” that are created by the State Education Department. Private corporations (for-profit or not) are created by the Department of State.
In NY, charter employees are not public employees, and charter are not “an entity of the state”, but they are “public schools” created by statute. Washington state is the only place where charters do not fit the specific definition of public schools.
Is it really true that charter schools are “created by the state”? A state bank can’t exist without a state charter, but I wouldn’t consider state banks to be “created by the state.” Isn’t the “charter” in both cases essentially a license?
Quote: “The charter school movement has been expelled from Washington state’s public education system, with a Supreme Court ruling late Friday that the privately run schools are not public schools under the state’s constitution.”
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/10/washington_charters_partner/
John, it is equally as hard for me to take you seriously when you choose to attack Michael Fiurillo, whom I have followed for some years on this blog, and who has produced IMO continually valid and thoughtful info. As one who agrees completely with Michael that the majority of charterizers are indeed riding ‘the gravy train’ in that they have a real scam going and do not have to invest their own cash in their free market ‘private’ school businesses, but live off the taxpayers funding. I know of few other businesses that have this huge advantage. To me it almost reeks of ‘mob’ mentality, but so far do not know of any broken kneecaps.
The major ability to get rich off this kind of NO investment opportunity is not lost to the hedge funders such as Tilson who now give classes to their clients in “how to invest in ‘public’ education…while knowing full well that the ONLY thing pubic, is their living off the public dole. Read Rupert Murdoch on this subject among others of the billionaire opportunists who love that there is little regulation nor oversight by public agencies for their private schools.
In my state of California, the fraud and even embezzlement of these CEOs is rampant. Hope you read up on this in Diane’s archives.
Ellen,
I’m not attacking Michael, just his positions.
There are some for-profit charter operators (most actually not profitable), and some states in which not-for-profit operators still put money into for-profit companies via real estate or management contracts. These are the exceptions though, and not the rule. Most charters are not-for-profits and most of the operators want to see for-profit charter end; especially the virtual charters, which IMO are mostly just scams.
This concept you have of people getting rich on charters without investment is interesting. Can you explain to me how that works? Your one example (Whitney Tilson) has donated lots of money to charters and has not made any money on them except by shorting (betting against) the virtual charter K12. He is not “invested” in charters, nor are his funds. There is no “living off the public dole” here. Also, nobody worked harder or risked more than him to try to keep Trump from getting elected. Check out anything he’s written.
Yes, there is fraud in the sector in California and it’s disgusting. But, using that brush to paint all charters and supporters is not appropriate.
Thank you, Ellen, but for whatever it’s worth, I wear the attacks of John and his ilk as a badge of honor.
Eva Moskowitz has offered nothing but positive comments about President-elect Trump since her meeting with him.
Here’s who she has criticized:
People “rooting” for Trump’s failure. After all, don’t we all hope he succeeds in doing all that he wants to do? How dare anyone protest him!
The NY Times journalists. How dare they be so critical of Trump in their news coverage!
Mayor de Blasio. He is no Donald Trump, since Trump really cares about the education of at-risk students failed by public schools and Mayor de Blasio doesn’t.
John, Eva Moskowitz is a leader of your movement. Not only has she never been disavowed by anyone — never criticized by the movement — but the movement attacks anyone who criticizes her.
If her flirtation with President-elect Trump and her 24 hour media tour to rehabilitate Trump and silence his critics does not convince you that her primary concern has never been about at-risk kids — except the ones who make her look good — then you and she share many of the same values. Might makes right. The ends justifies the means. In that you have a lot in common with our new President.
@JOHN: From the esteemed Diane Ravitch blog: The California Charter Schools Association entered an amicus brief on their behalf maintaining that the couple are not guilty of any criminal offense because charter schools are not subject to the laws governing public schools. CCSA says that charter schools are exempt from criminal laws governing public schools because they are operated by a private corporation.
https://dianeravitch.net/2013/10/09/charter-schools-insist-we-are-private-not-public/
Charter schools are privately operated, they are unaccountable to the duly elected school boards and the district superintendents, they have their own boards of directors and their own mini superintendents. Sounds private to me.
I was interested to see the college dropout, “goggle-eyed homunculus” (as Charles Pierce at Esquire so accurately and hilariously characterizes him) and generally subliterate governor of the state in which I grew up, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, mentioned as a possibility. If he is appropriate, than I nominate Officer Gunther Toody of “Car 54, Where Are You?” fame.
“updates the latest speculation…”
It seems the knowledge-seeking “tools of analysis” include speculation,
the phenomena of clairvoyance-divination-predictions, mind reading…
AMAZING