The U.S. Department of Education, in the Trump regime, is starting to look like a Jeb Bush sweep.
Betsy DeVos was on the board of Jeb’s Foundation for Education Excellence, which is noted for its advocacy for vouchers, charter schools, digital learning, and high-stakes testing.
Hanna Skandera, State Superintendent in New Mexico, worked for Jeb Bush, was a member and chair of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, and is a supporter of Common Core (and president of the PARCC consortium).
Now Politico reports that Paul Pastorek of Louisiana, also a member of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, is under consideration for the ED Department’s general counsel. Pastorek was a leader and cheerleader for the complete privatization of the public schools in New Orleans.
As superintendent [of Louisiana] from 2007 to 2011, he helped oversee the rebuilding of New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina. He has held a number of education reform leadership positions, serving as co-executive director of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, for example. Pastorek helped found the PARCC consortium and he’s chairman of PARCC Inc.’s board of directors.
In other words, Trump has forgotten that he promised to eliminate Common Core (which he can’t do unless the states want to do it.) He said repeatedly that Common Core is a “disaster.” But all of his likely top appointments are Common Core advocates, like Jeb Bush.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I knew they’d all fall in line with Trump but even I’m surprised how quickly it happened.
One month! That’s all it took before they all dropped their most solemn beliefs and principles and embraced him! 🙂
Ed reform is an echo chamber now. Wait until DeVos is running things and public schools are completely excluded.
I actually don’t have any problem with the Common Core (although I knew ed reformers wouldn’t support it with additional resources, and they haven’t) but if I were a an anti-Common Core Republican I’d be pretty mad.
They tricked all those GOP voters. Bamboozled them.
DeVos supports the Common Core and so do the rest of them. They just needed it as an issue to batter Obama with. Now that’s Obama’s gone there’s no longer a need for them to pretend they oppose the Common Core.
It’s a game to these people. Republican opposition to the Common Core was purely a political tactic. Obviously. It wouldn’t have passed all those state legislatures without GOP support.
They probably see how they can justify privatization, the real goal, using the above grade level testing to declare public schools “failing.” The CCSS are a vehicle of privatization. There are plenty of vultures waiting in the wings to collect their public dollars. Obama and Gates taught the right wing how to do it. I just hope this time, black groups along with parent groups and unions counter with action. There is strength in numbers.
retired teacher, the tests have been used as a tool to promote privatization. Jeb realized that early on. He knew that Common Core and the tests would show public schools in a bad light. At the same time, voucher schools are exempt.
Oh, come on, Chiara. They just support “high standards” and “local control.” Isn’t that what JEB and Kasich said on the presidential campaign trail?
I have this picture of all these federal employees fanning out to public schools to tell everyone how horrible they are.
90% of kids and parents will be paying these people to harm the schools their children actually attend. How did this happen? It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.
Talk about losing the plot.
Jeb and the rest of the privateers want to pry local schools from the hands of the local communities so they can deliver them to corporations.
It is not so hard to be tricked and bamboozled when you simply choose to ignore — and even loudly discount — every single (and so oft-repeated) signal that the man’s only business MO has been that of not only fooling his opponent, but then taking advantage of any subsequent weakness.
Well, Trump has already turned Twitter into an educational tool, that fact checks HIS Tweets now!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/16/now-you-can-fact-check-trumps-tweets-in-the-tweets-themselves/?utm_term=.0429ac7d9256
You mean Mr. Trump lied when he said he opposes common core?
I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.
not
“MINORITY” president-elect trump is a disaster.
Michelle Malkin explains why conservatives and liberals agree that DeVos is a bad choice:
•Trump said he would “End Common Core”
•Jeb’s actions spoke louder than his words on CC when his non-profit foundation provided the funding going into using Florida as a test pilot for expanding federal standards scheme and testing and technology that went with it
•DeVos used her foundation in Michigan- not just mouthing words of support for CC but also funding and supporting data collection
•Both tied to Gates Foundation
•Backlash of grassroots conservatives who know it is a racket boondoggle and
who see the impact and consequences in their own kids classroom
•School choice/charter schools started to see great textbooks replaced with CC aligned text because if kids weren’t prepared to take federal tests aligned with CC, schools district would be punished
•Betsy DeVos pushing school choice is not going to allay concerns of parents because it is no choice
•Charters discriminate! They get their headcount for funding and then send the difficult children BACK to public.
•School choice is no choice if public/private/home school are ALL
aligned with CC standards
•DeVos was not only promoting standards and testing but ALSO a lot of data mining thru her foundation.
•So u see..School choice means NOTHING as long as there is the massive encroachment of the CC apparatus
•What does it mean when you say you want end CC – “empty platitude”
•Betsy was not only promoting standards and testing but also a lot of data mining which is a concern to:
-Conservatives
-Libertarians
-ACLU Liberals
•Education, Common Core and Data Mining-“Biggest battles, sleeper battles heading into January”
•It is possible she doesn’t get nomination if Senators ask the right questions
•Big labor bosses NEA bought off by Gates
•At the rank and file, teachers in same position as grassroots parents are
Listen to Michelle Malkin explain issues with DeVos at 30:00
Listen at 24:35 for my call in to John Carlson in Seattle after Liv Finne debated Ken Zeichner about DeVos yesterday:
http://kvi.com/podcast/carlsoncast-dec15-hour2-2016
“Listen to Michelle Malkin…” That’s way too creepy a proposition for me.
Sorry, but when you have to cite Michelle Malkin for succor, you have already lost any hope, whether you know it or not. If she said that my mother loved me, I’d want to check her sources.
When you see that the privatization of education is mostly from the right, I think it helps to point out those on the right who are telling the truth about what is really happening. When it comes to educating kids, I commend anyone who stands up to the ones who are manipulating the system. I don’t agree with everything single thing Diane publishes but when it exposes the reformers, I share that info.
Who is worse: Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin or are they evil twins?
I’ve come around to liking the Common Core. I’m not a conservative or a federalist and I don’t have any ideological objection to national standards.
I also think it was very generous of the good people of NY to pay for Ohio’s Common Core materials – as far as I can tell we’re using NY materials at my son’s school 🙂
I would be okay w/it if the standards were the same in every state. There’s just not that much difference between an Ohio 8th grader and a NY 8th grader. There’s no particular “Ohiocentric” math, as far as I know. That seems ridiculous to me.
I guess I could see it if your state had very high standards and the Common Core was inferior to the standards you had, but that wasn’t true in Ohio.
In the best of all possible worlds having common instruction sounds terrific in theory. In fact, across states many of the same topics in the same level courses are taught anyway, and they may use the same texts. However, the CCSS have been used like the hammer of Thor against public schools. It has many flaws as it was not devised to improve instruction; it was devised by non-educators to dismantle public schools.
I’ve heard some bad news before, but this stuff takes the prize.
Trump can always fall back on the Alzheimer’s excuse about forgetting and even forgetting that he forgot anything he says or Tweets.
Don’t be surprised if Tony Bennett shows up at USDOE. These appointments stink of Pence’s influence.
Are you talking about another Tony Bennett I don’t know about?
When I Googled Tony Bennett I got the singer who is a long-time Democrat and vocal advocate of gun control and he is non-religious. The singer Tony Bennett compared America’s gun culture and political tolerance of it to Hitler’s Germany.