The corporate reform movement must be popping the champagne corks with the selection of Betsy DeVos as Trump’s Secretary of Education. Finally, a secretary who advocates for the elimination of public schools without embarrassment and who will fight unions and teacher tenure.
As it happens, Betsy DeVos and her husband are funders of Campbell Brown’s website The 74 (along with Walton, Broad, and Bloomberg). And Campbell Brown sits on the board of Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children.
Campbell Brown has launched lawsuits to get teacher tenure declared unconstitutional (her suit in Minnesota was thrown out by the judge). She has fought the unions as protectors of “sexual predators.” DeVos doesn’t like public schools. Neither does Campbell Brown. They both like charters and vouchers.
What a small world!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I feel certain that many have covered this
but
I thought there was a separation of church and state. Many or at least some of these schools given government funds are church schools. I caught a lot of flack because in my choral classes I taught too much religious music, the great art works by the major composers. Strange world.
How come?
This is a must read….
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/01/devos-family-foundations-heritage-americans-prosperity-blackwater
Is it possible that, given enough rope, Trump and his cohort will hang themselves?
Will DeVos’ agenda and views prove too radical for the mainstream. Certainly what she stands for flies in the face of the NCAA’s referendum on charter schools.
My favorite movie line “I don’t think she gives a damn” about the NAACP. or the “little people”.
She may find that those angry suburban moms would tell her to go stick the mandates and keep the money . What happens to poorer children another story.
DeVos has been very successful in pivoting Michigan to policies that enrich the top 0.1%. Nationally, based on exit polls, only 51% of union households voted for Hillary. Michigan figured into that statistic.
Perhaps now, with Black Lives and the NAACP on our side, and the White House firmly, unmistakably in the grip of the billionaire class, we can finally get the Democrats to join us in our struggle against privatization and the theft of pensions and health care, in the struggle against all “savings accounts” and other backpacks of cash. I want Elizabeth Warren protecting public service unions. That would make this whole year an opportunity instead of a problem.
LeftCoast
I love Elisabeth Warren (my wife fully understands) but i want Bernie and Liz not leading us but following us in Demonstrations so large they make the tea party look like a game little girls play . I assure you it will be a lot more comfortable on the Leftcoast coast than the Rightcoast
I hope I don’t have to explain that one. Others seem not to understand my humor. I am getting a complex when they have to post the constitution.
Joel,
You never have to explain to me. I know what I’m at and where my name is.
We already have demonstrations. We shut down Scott Walker’s house. We Occupied Wall Street. I want back the Democrats in the Senate. I want the Democrats at Martha’s Vineyard. It really helps to have popular AND political support for public education. The faux center cannot hold forever in the halls of power. The centrist duck’s got to be feeling lame by now. Probably doesn’t know what coast he’s on anymore.
Rebecca Klein, of Huffpo, reported today that some of Trump’s support came from voters opposed to Common Core. So, Bill Gates, who just received a national award from Obama, may have played a part in the defeat of Hillary Clinton (easily predicted turn of events). Now, is Gates going to cut his losses, related to standardizing curriculum/testing/data analytics and accelerate his campaign for charter schools, with DeVos in place? Or, will he pivot to the sale of schools-in-a box, since he is an investor in the largest seller of the product?
I don’t believe it was only a little support: from what I’ve been reading, there were many, many voters who jumped on board the Trump train just to hear him say he’d “get rid of the Common Core”— people who never understood that the CC was deeply in thrall to technology, testmakers, curricula/program writers, etc. People who are now in a tizzy as they see him pivot to the very heavily entrenched Big Money school reform game.
At least the true goal has been revealed – the total destruction of public schools. Hopefully it is not too late. Any suggestions of how to fight this?
Moneyed interests have always found religious fundamentalists useful tools in gaining dominion over government. That is why we will not preserve the wall between church and state until we repair the wall between corporations and state.
So, yeah….
Just when so many thought we were winning….
Only hope is that DeVos is so inexperienced that our side can have hope to overwhelm her with resistance.
That requires whole handfuls of gumption that our side hasn’t shown the sand to muster in the ways necessary, but it’s a door….
Weingarten, I’ve heard on the radio, has made some initial statements against her. An obvious call. I wonder when she will start working with deVos and working that seat at the table thing?
It turns out shit can always get worse….
”The labor council president became increasingly impatient. Finally, Van Arsdale said, “Look! We aren’t getting anywhere. When I get to this point in my negotiations with employers I say, ‘Gentlemen! (slamming his palm down on the table for emphasis) ‘Your shops will not open tomorrow.’ [Van Arsdale] stopped and glared at the committee before continuing. ‘If you can say that and make it stick, all right. You have my support. But if you don’t have the troops, we might as well stop wasting time. You’ve got all you’re going to get.’”
This was the birth of the UFT . The strike was a total flop . At my elementary school (built on land donated to the city by that labor leader’s Union) the only ones on the Picket line were the two male teachers Mr Klugger and Mr Blitz . The BOE over reached they threatened to fire all the strikers, the few that there were . That enraged Van Arsdale and other labor leaders , who called Wagner the mayor and told him not in his city. The rest is history, Wagner reigned in the superintendent and the UFT was recognized as the barganing agent for teachers.
Those were times that labor had far more influence but one has to recognize that that getting there was a painful task. Not only were jobs and careers put on the line, lives were put on the line.
This has never been about the children. I do not believe it is even about the money. Way to many actors to be about money for the Billionaire class. It has always been about vouchers for private religious academies to avoid desegregation as part of a broader Southern strategy,extending as far north as the Canadian border. , It has busting unions targeting the nations largest, Finally it is an ideological assault on Public Goods education being the most prominent one.
So to your statement , it will require a whole lot of gumption and sacrifice. Our side had better find that gumption before we are returned to the days of indentured servitude.
It has been about busting unions
As I see it, Washington state has some protections against those that seek to privatize education.
I’m thrilled that Chris Reykdal has been elected as Superintendent of Public education. He has a history of standing-up to the feds. It is going to be interesting.
I do fear for our nation. Thank you for your posts.
Now we have the wolf and not the fox to deal with. I said it at SOS conventions; If the teachers unions did their job to protect the profession and public education rather than accommodate one contract give back after another to “have a seat at the table” we would be in a much stronger position than we are now. Agreeing to teacher evaluations, at leas in party by test score, a reductionist rubric for which to evaluate teachers administered by inexperience, ambitious and corporate-in-attitude principals.
I have serious reservations that AFT/UFT and NEA leadership have what it takes to confront this new treat to public education and the teaching profession. Time to clean house?
Perhaps you are right. But is the membership up to the task at hand.
I’m hyperventilating! What happened to Ben Carson – he was a less threatening choice?
Carson will be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a field where he knows nothing. He promises to revitalize America’s cities.
Talk about putting square pegs in round holes.