Okay, you know that Betsy DeVos, Trump’s choice for Secretary of Education, is a billionaire. You know that she wants vouchers. You know that her organization, the American Federation for Children, cheers every victory for school choice as a defeat for public schools.
But there is more to know about this activist and funder of the religious right.
Lisa Graves of the Center for Media and Democracy wrote an article about five things you should know about Betsy DeVos.
There is a real question about her fitness to serve as U.S. Secretary of Education in light of her belief in privatization of education. Most of America’s students go to public schools. There have been many state referenda on vouchers, and they have been turned down every time, by large margins. (See Utah results in 2007 here, where vouchers were defeated by 62-38%. In Florida, despite the support of Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee, a voucher measure (called the Religious Freedom Amendment, went down to defeat by 55-45%). She and her husband financed a referendum on vouchers in Michigan in 2000, and it was rejected 69-31%.
As Secretary of Education, working with a sympathetic Congress, she might do serious damage to the nation’s public schools. We can’t let that happen. Join the Network for Public Education’s campaign to send emails to senators opposing her nomination.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Actually, from all these unsuccessful attempts to implement vouchers I conclude, we should let DeVos to become secretary of education. She simply cannot convince people about the value of vouchers, so she’ll fail as a secretary. The more people in Trump’s cabinet fail, the better.
May they fight endlessly among themselves.
Report: Economic Policy Institute/Consequences of Charter School Expansion
By Bruce D. Baker • November 30, 2016\
Exploring the consequences of charter school expansion in U.S. cities
http://www.epi.org
QUOTING
Some communities look at claims of miraculous proficiency rates or heed reports of long waiting lists for charter schools and conclude that chartering is the way to go. But if the broad, long-term policy objective is to move toward the provision of a “system of great schools” that produces an equitable distribution of excellent (or at the very least adequate) educational opportunities for all children, chartering must pass a much more thoughtful examination. Other reports have shown how high test scores and popularity of charter schools could be the byproducts of using data from cherry-picked charter schools that serve cherry-picked or culled populations. This report adds further insights for the debate on how expanding charter schools as a policy alternative achieves the broader goal. Specifically, it shows that charter expansion may increase inequity, introduce inefficiencies and redundancies, compromise financial stability, and introduce other objectionable distortions to the system that impede deliver
Executive Summary
This report highlights patterns of charter school expansion across several large and mid-size U.S. cities since 2000. In this report, the focus is the loss of enrollments and revenues to charter schools in host districts and the response of districts as seen through patterns of overhead expenditures. I begin by identifying those cities and local public school districts that have experienced the largest shifts of students from district-operated to charter schools, and select from among those cities illustrative examples of the effects of charter school expansion on host district finances and enrollments. END QUOTE
Download report at:
http://www.epi.org/publication/exploring-the-consequences-of-charter-school-expansion-in-u-s-cities/?mc_cid=c22114ad64&mc_eid=09afd82598
The campaigns of Democratic candidates could have capitalized on the repugnance of public school privatization- the takeover of America’s most important common good, by wealthy manipulators from Wall Street and the tech industry. However, Democrats, by being in the same plot, with Republicans, vitiated a winning strategy, which a man like Podesto and CAP’s president, certainly, should have known.
Linda,
I and many others tried to make school privatization an issue but it was ignored during the election. I hope the Denocrats and some Republicans realize the danger of turning public money over to religious groups and edupreneurs.
It bears repeating from the highest roof top, America owes Diane Ravitch a huge debt. Ravitch should have been awarded the Medal of Freedom.
The DeVos family network of foundations generously donate to
Koch Brother/AFP sponsored programs like the Grassroots Leadership Academy that gives how-to lessons in everything from mounting successful protest actions to recruiting middle of the road voters.
Applying Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” thousands of people are being trained to become organizers and political activists. This “grassroots” outfit has been set up by the gabillionaire Koch boys to train cadres of right-wing corporatists to spread their ideological laissez-faire dust across the land. The academy is run through Americans for Prosperity, Charlie and Davie Koch’s political wing, which put up $3 million to get it going.
About 10,000 people have gone through some of the training sessions in three dozen states. The brothers’ grandiose scheme is to take over the Republican Party and use it as their tool to rebuild America itself into a Kochlandia, ruled by the superrich. The academy’s curriculum is loaded with such corporate nonsense as a course titled “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” Attendees are indoctrinated with two overarching lessons: 1. Freewheeling corporate power unrestrained by labor, environmental or other public protections is good. 2. Social Security, unemployment benefits and other social programs are bad.
Koch College for right-wing social engineers is peddling a status quo agenda of corporate elitism and trickle-down ideology, which the vast majority of Americans have openly rebelled against. It’s like trying to sell chicken salad made out of chicken manure.
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/04/koch-brothers-protege-and-founding-father-wannabe-gov-greg-abbott-wants-to-amend-your-constitution-9-ways/?source=newsletter
She says she’s a Calvinist. How exciting! That means she believes God has foreordained which of us are Elect (going to Heaven) and which of us will burn in Hell for eternity. Calvinists believe that worldly success and upright behavior is a sign that you’re likely part of the Elect. Her billions must make her pretty hopeful about the afterlife.
She must have skipped over the new testament. Romney thought he was pre-ordained by God, to be President. Note to Romney, about being wrong- God likes crude men, who cheat and have orange hair.
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