Archives for the month of: November, 2016
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Mother Crusader Discovers Betsy DeVos Using Product Placement to Sell Her Stuff

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2016 //
28

Mother Crusader (aka parent activist Darcie Cimarusti) noticed a photograph of Betsy DeVos on her Twitter account that seemed wrong. She was sitting and chatting with a student, and both of them had a box of water in front of them.

 

Darcie began digging, digging, digging. She finally hit pay dirt. The boxed water was branded. It was a company that is part of the DeVos portfolio. Betsy DeVos, billionaire heiress, was using her Twitter account for product placement!

 

Read the account of how she researched the boxes of water prominently displayed in front of DeVos and the student.

 

We know that Donald Trump believes that he is not bound by any ethics laws and can engage in conflicts of interest without any legal problems. But, Darcie wonders, can the Secretary of Education shill for her products too?

 

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Trump

DeVos Family Values: Money, Power, and Rightwing Politics

By dianeravitch
November 25, 2016 //
17

Two years ago, Mother Jones published a lengthy and excellent article about the DeVos family, how they became billionaires, and how they turned Michigan into a “right to work” state.

 

They are “the new Kochs,” determined to crush the left, especially labor unions and public education.

 

“THE DEVOSES sit alongside the Kochs, the Bradleys, and the Coorses as founding families of the modern conservative movement. Since 1970, DeVos family members have invested at least $200 million in a host of right-wing causes—think tanks, media outlets, political committees, evangelical outfits, and a string of advocacy groups. They have helped fund nearly every prominent Republican running for national office and underwritten a laundry list of conservative campaigns on issues ranging from charter schools and vouchers to anti-gay-marriage and anti-tax ballot measures. “There’s not a Republican president or presidential candidate in the last 50 years who hasn’t known the DeVoses,” says Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

 

“Nowhere has the family made its presence felt as it has in Michigan, where it has given more than $44 million to the state party, GOP legislative committees, and Republican candidates since 1997. “It’s been a generational commitment,” Anuzis notes. “I can’t start to even think of who would’ve filled the void without the DeVoses there….”

 

Forbes ranks the DeVos family at #60 of the richest 400 families in America. They are noted for their generosity to Christian and conservative causes.

 

In selecting Betsy DeVos for the role of Education Secretary, Trump has chosen someone who looks on public schools with contempt. She will use her influence to harm public education and the teaching profession.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Unions, Vouchers

Never Thought I Would See This in My Lifetime: Fascism in America

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
61

The New York Times depicted an extraordinary spectacle: the gathering of a group of people wearing swastikas and giving the Nazi salute, convening in a federal office building to celebrate the election of the new President.

 

They call themselves the “alt-right.” But when people give the “sieg heil” salute, when they babble about the racial inferiority of nonwhites,  when they use German expressions, they are neo-Nazis at best.

 

Their leader, Richard B. Spencer, spoke in familiar terms:

 

But now his tone changed as he began to tell the audience of more than 200 people, mostly young men, what they had been waiting to hear. He railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were “awakening to their own identity.”

 

As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. Mr. Spencer called out: “Hail Trump! Hail our people!” and then, “Hail victory!” — the English translation of the Nazi exhortation “Sieg Heil!” The room shouted back…

 

Mr. Spencer’s after-dinner speech began with a polemic against the “mainstream media,” before he briefly paused. “Perhaps we should refer to them in the original German?” he said.

 

The audience immediately screamed back, “Lügenpresse,” reviving a Nazi-era word that means “lying press….”

 

“America was, until this last generation, a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Mr. Spencer thundered. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

 

But the white race, he added, is “a race that travels forever on an upward path.”

 

“To be white is to be a creator, an explorer, a conqueror,” he said.

 

More members of the audience were on their feet as Mr. Spencer described the choice facing white people as to “conquer or die.”

 

Of other races, Mr. Spencer said: “We don’t exploit other groups, we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around.”

 

This is America. There is free speech for all, even for the speech we deplore. But let’s get the terminology right. “Alt-right” is a weasel word. Just call them fascists.

 

 

 

Categories Politics

ACLU of Michigan Warns About Dangers of DeVos Nomination

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
49

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan released the following statement on the nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education:

 
Kary Moss, Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan, issued the following statement on the nomination of Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education:

 

We strongly urge Congress to scrutinize the record of Betsy DeVos, who has been a staunch proponent of school vouchers, a misguided idea that diverts taxpayer dollars into private and parochial schools and perverts the bedrock American value of separation of church and state. She and her husband served as the primary fundraisers and engine for a Michigan ballot initiative –Kids First! Yes! Coalition that voters soundly rejected in 2000.

 

She has ardently supported the unlimited, unregulated growth of charter schools in Michigan, elevating for-profit schools with no consideration of the severe harm done to traditional public schools. She’s done this despite overwhelming evidence that proves that charters do no better at educating children than traditional public schools and serve only to exacerbate funding problems for cash-strapped public districts. We believe that all children have a right to a quality public education, and we fear that Betsy DeVos’ relentless advocacy of charter schools and vouchers betrays these principles.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state, Vouchers

New York Times on DeVos: A Champion for Privatization of Education

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
21

Kate Zernike of the New York Times has an excellent article explaining Betsy DeVos to the general public. She is not your garden-variety “reformer,” who claims to love both public schools and charter schools. She is a  privatization zealot.

 

For nearly 30 years, as a philanthropist, activist and Republican fund-raiser, she has pushed to give families taxpayer money in the form of vouchers to attend private and parochial schools, pressed to expand publicly funded but privately run charter schools, and tried to strip teacher unions of their influence.

 

A daughter of privilege, she also married into it; her husband, Dick, who ran unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan a decade ago, is heir to the Amway fortune. Like many education philanthropists, she argues that children’s ZIP codes should not confine them to failing schools.

 

But Ms. DeVos’s efforts to expand educational opportunity in her home state of Michigan and across the country have focused little on existing public schools, and almost entirely on establishing newer, more entrepreneurial models to compete with traditional schools for students and money. Her donations and advocacy go almost entirely toward groups seeking to move students and money away from what Mr. Trump calls “failing government schools.”

 

Conservative school choice activists hailed her on Wednesday as a fellow disrupter, and as someone who would block what they see as federal intrusion on local schools.

 

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, where Ms. DeVos helped push legislation establishing tax credits for scholarships to private schools, called her an “outstanding pick,” a “passionate change agent to press for a new education vision.”

 

DeVos and her  fellow privatization zealots have a goal: the destruction of public education.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Did Trump Scam the White Working Class that Turned Out for Him?

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
21

Paul Waldman writes in the Washington Post that the white working class who voted for Trump might be realizing that they were scammed, if not now, then eventually.

 

One by one, he is breaking the promises he made at his campaign rallies.

 

Imagine you’re one of those folks who went to Trump rallies and thrilled to his promises to take America back from the establishment, who felt your heart stir as he promised to torture prisoners, who got your “Trump That Bitch” T-shirt, who was overjoyed to finally have a candidate who tells it like it is. What are you thinking as you watch this?

 

If you have any sense, you’re coming to the realization that it was all a scam. You got played. While you were chanting “Lock her up!” he was laughing at you for being so gullible. While you were dreaming about how you’d have an advocate in the Oval Office, he was dreaming about how he could use it to make himself richer. He hasn’t even taken office yet and everything he told you is already being revealed as a lie.

Categories Hoax, Trump

Trump Expected to Add Another Billionaire to His Cabinet

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
5

Trump is expected to select Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor in distressed companies, as Secretary of Commerce.

 

That’s two billionaires in the cabinet. Will there be more?

 

In Ross, Trump has tapped a like-minded businessman who understands the prospects for both profit and peril in restoring American manufacturing. Ross built his fortune buying the distressed companies that were once at the heart of American industry — steel mills, coal mines and textile factories, to name a few — and then selling them in short order, making billions of dollars along the way.

 

Perhaps his signature investment was the purchase of some of the nation’s largest steel mills in the early 2000s, including Cleveland-based LTV Corp. and Pennsylvania’s Bethlehem Steel. The move was credited with saving manufacturing jobs, with the United Steelworkers calling Ross “a new ally” in news reports at the time.

 

Since then, however, many steel mills have shut down amid increased a glut of foreign production, much of it in China. Ross sold his steel conglomerate to what is now ArcerlorMittal in 2004 for about $4.5 billion.

Categories Trump

A Teacher in Nevada Gives Thanks

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
1

Angie Sullivan, second grade teacher in Nevada, gives thanks. If you want to thank Angie, a tireless advocate for her students, write her at angiesullivan0@gmail.com

 

Angie writes:

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

I am grateful for public schools which are central to American opportunity.

 

Public schools are the main protectors of social justice.

 

Public schools are central to democracy.

 

We educate everyone – no matter the need.

 

Public schools take all students.

 

My students are the center of my life.

 

We need to protect public schools not drown them with unfunded mandates while withholding resources. We will fail if Nevada continues to withhold resources while increasing demands every year.

 

Experiments across the USA to educate communities of color by forcing them into charters without skilled permanent labor are failing. Corporations and groups want to devalue what teachers do. It does not work. It is a scam.

 

See Detroit.

 

See the lawsuits.

 

Policy that there is no need for skilled labor and union busting did this.

 

Communities of color need to demand a neighborhood public school with RESEARCH BASED instruction. They also need to demand authentic education not just test preparation.

 

Communities of color need to demand a real permanent skilled veteran teacher. Filling at-risk schools with young folks who had five weeks of training one summer – does not work. Filling at-risk schools with large number of ARLs and Subs has got to stop. It is our communities of color without real teachers.

 

Teachers should not be temporary. Hiring warm bodies without pedagogy is a real problem in at-risk schools in Vegas.

 

Teachers know there is not a quick fix. We know literacy is hard work not a quick fad or gimmick to make someone outside the school cash. Real teachers are not on our way to a school board seat or some other position. We do not whisper in the ears of power. We do not have a public relations firm which announces all our achievements.

 

We just take care of kids.

 

We do the job – but we are tired of being abused.

 

Detroit is Vegas.

 

If we do not fight charters, this will be us at a rate of six schools in the ASD a year. Yes, ASD legislation did this to Detroit. Charters did this to Detroit. Union busting did this.

 

If our community does not stand up and demand funding for at-risk public schools – this will be us. We are being starved into failure.

 

We will be drowned in lawsuits. All students who do not have a real teacher -should be demanding one.

 

The reformer experiment has failed in Nevada. Nevada charters are failing.

 

The full data needs to be reported.

 

The reformer experiment destroyed Detroit. Detroit’s charters are failing. Detroit’s ASD failed.

 

We do not need to repeat the mistakes other places make. We need to change our laws to get our charter mess under control

 

I am grateful for public schools.

 

I am grateful for my sweet students and their families.

 

I am grateful for democracy and America.

 

Home Means Nevada.

Categories Democracy, Nevada, Students

What Charles Blow is Thankful For

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
36

Charles Blow writes a regular opinion column for the New York Times.

 

This is one of his most blistering.

 

He writes about Trump’s recent visit to the New York Times. He says he was almost obsequious in praising the Times, which he has regularly lambasted in tweets. Blow didn’t attend the meeting. He didn’t want to.

 

He does not expect to “get along” with Trump. He explains why and is thankful that he will be there to stand up for principle.

 

You are a fraud and a charlatan. Yes, you will be president, but you will not get any breaks just because one branch of your forked tongue is silver.

 

I am not easily duped by dopes.

 

I have not only an ethical and professional duty to call out how obscene your very existence is at the top of American government; I have a moral obligation to do so.

 

I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but rather to speak up for truth and honor and inclusion. This isn’t just about you, but also about the moral compass of those who see you for who and what you are, and know the darkness you herald is only held at bay by the lights of truth.

 

It’s not that I don’t believe that people can change and grow. They can. But real growth comes from the accepting of responsibility and repenting of culpability. Expedient reversal isn’t growth; it’s gross.

 

So let me say this on Thanksgiving: I’m thankful to have this platform because as long as there are ink and pixels, you will be the focus of my withering gaze.

 

I’m thankful that I have the endurance and can assume a posture that will never allow what you represent to ever be seen as everyday and ordinary.
No, Mr. Trump, we will not all just get along. For as long as a threat to the state is the head of state, all citizens of good faith and national fidelity — and certainly this columnist — have an absolute obligation to meet you and your agenda with resistance at every turn.

 

I know this in my bones, and for that I am thankful.

Categories Trump

Will Latino Children Be Thankful or Frightened?

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2016 //
9

I am a patriot. I love America. I believe in its promise, its hopefulness, its welcome to those seeking refuge. For me, it has always been the land of opportunity, the country where dreams may come true. My mother was an immigrant from Bessarabia. My father’S parents immigrated from Poland.

Thus, I get upset when people ridicule or humiliate those who are weaker, people who are peaceably going about their life and trying to become Americans.

This story was very upsetting because I could identify with the children and their families.

http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-school-mood-20161116-story.html

Categories Democracy
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