Valerie Strauss writes today that Trump heaped scorn on Jeb Bush during the primaries, but Jeb is the big winner in Trump education policy. Betsy DeVos is a close friend of Jeb and was a member of Jeb’s board. Jeb promotes charters, vouchers, digital learning, and Common Core. The person likely to be appointed as DeVos’ guide to policy issues is Hanna Skandera, who worked closely with and for Jeb and is now State Commissioner of Education in New Mexico. Skandera is an enthusiastic supporter of the Common Core, as are all of those slated to lead the Department.
“Bush as much as anyone led the corporate school reform movement — treating public schools as if they were for-profit businesses — turning Florida into a testing ground when he became governor of the state in 1999. He created a “Florida Formula” of schools reforms that became a model for other states, including state “report cards” that assign letter grades to schools based largely on test scores and widespread school choice right after he became governor of Florida in 1999.”
Jeb says public schools are government monopolies and he has led the campaign to smash the monopoly.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I found this to be a useful read in understanding Trump and his motivations. It’s from someone who has had experience dealing with narcissistic personality disorder: https://medium.com/@nziehl/coping-with-chaos-in-the-white-house-697fa2ca3ddf#.hoo63du98
But I am hoping ridicule will drive him to a stroke.
Michelle: thank you for the link. Much food for thought.
But, with all due respect, I urge caution with the last, #10.
It begins: “Whenever possible, do not focus on the narcissist or give him attention.”
I disagree for several reasons, one of them being that it is helpful and empowering (not to mention important for my mental/emotional health) to compare my reactions to those of others. And not everyone supporting Trump will go all the way with him. They need to be reminded (and will be affected by it over the long haul) of the growing chasm between what they expect/think/hope of him and what he actually does [in all fairness, #10 may allude to this at the end].
And how to tie him up in knots? Make him say what he really thinks and is doing? Help him become increasingly thwarted at every turn? I think others offer much better advice.
For example, someone with—IMHO—much deeper insight into the human condition opined:
“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” [Mark Twain]
But that’s just water off a Druck’s back, right?
Nope. Just ask a very old and very dead and very French guy:
“Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.” [François de la Rochefoucauld]
Trust me on this: Trump & Co. will provide all the ammunition necessary to utterly dishonor, and ridicule, and disempower, themselves.
To use one of their fav phrases: these “snowflakes” can’t stand even a little of the heat they will generate against themselves.
No more than vampires can stand the light of the midday sun.
That’s the way I see it…
😎
His promises on how to improve education are nothing to dream about. How many of these 282 ‘promises’ does he remember?
“In Donald Trump’s final days on the campaign trail, he promised his supporters that “every dream you ever dreamed for your country” will come true if he becomes president — one of dozens of sweeping promises he made and is now expected to fulfill.”
‘I will give you everything.’ Here are 282 of Donald Trump’s campaign promises. from The Washington Post
http://wapo.st/2gm9BSd?tid=ss_mail
The content of the promises do not sound like they originated with Trump, especially if you look at the promises by topics. The education “promises” seem to have come from a few sources, with the “get rid of the Common Core promise” a relative outlier from a consistent focus on choice, merit pay , etc. Bush, Devos or proxies could have supplied a tick list that he “voiced” in his totally, but totally inimitable way, complete with right hand raised, bouncing up and down, fingers forming a circle, pinky finger pointing to the sky.
The excrement effluent of another Bush! What the hell did this country do to deserve the scourge of the Bush family? The gods of karma must hold a strong grudge for allowing those self-serving bastards to breed.
Did I miss something, is there any alternative in that party. .
Reblogged this on DelawareFirstState and commented:
Not sure where public education will be in four years
Skandera is one of the Fellows from Gates-funded, Kim Smith-created, Pahara Institute, which is part of the Aspen Institute. David Koch is on Aspen Institute’s board.
Kim Smith’s “marching orders”, in her role as founder of New Schools Venture Fund, “to develop diverse charter school organizations to produce different brands on a large scale.” (Philanthropy Roundtable)
This is who Gates is … he lives in the state with the most regressive tax system in the nation. The poor pay a rate up to 7 times the rate the rich pay. (2) He is an investor in the largest seller of for-profit schools-in-a-box. (3) His PR has said for years that, like Buffet, he’s giving away his fortune. Gates remains the richest man in the world, at 94.1 bil. Buffet’s wealth grew to $74.1 bil,, this year.
Off topic: DJT said he’d do so much for the economy. Who’d have guessed stimulating sales of pink yarn? To knit “pussy hats” for Jan 21 March.
See online articles BBC News, Detroit Free Press, Portland (Maine) Press Herald.
Please supply links to the stories. TIA, Duane
Sorry DS, I don’t know how to do links. Just google BBC news pussyhats. Or the other newspapers I noted.
I eventually found the BBC report. I wanted it to show my niece. It can be found here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38625901
Highlight the url by clicking on it, hold the ctrl and c keys, let off. Then click the cursor on where you want in in your post and hit the ctrl and v keys and the url will appear, and should then be accessible to click on to be taken to the link. Now I’m working on a laptop, and have no idea how to do this on an Ipad/cell phone, etc. . . Maybe someone who does know can follow up!.
It would be cool if folks mailed their hats to Kellyanne Conway after the Women’s March.
Jeb Bush has a brother who owns a company that markets educational materials.
Nothing the Bush family engages in is done for any reason other than to enrich themselves.
See my comment at 6:01.
Maybe Jeb will swallow his pride and accept the Secretary of Education after DeVos is thrown under the bus… that would make the cabinet a literal billionaire BOYS club…
With a PGIC, eh!
More from THEBetsy (thanks to M. Schneider for finding this). Read it and weep or perhaps laugh your ass off at the inanities, triteness and tired clichedness of it:
http://www.federationforchildren.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Betsy-SXSWedu-speech-final-remarks.pdf?e40fe9
Thanks for the site. Betsy DeVos definitely doesn’t understand what is happening inside the classroom. What a HORRIBLE choice for Secretary of Education. She will be totally destructive to public schools.
The inconvenient truth is that all she knows about education is what she hears in the “reformer” bubble, and she has nothing to offer the DOE or our students.
I saw this in the Washington Post, an open letter from 175 Deans of Education schools with concerns about the education policy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/13/education-deans-to-trump-were-seriously-concerned-about-your-agenda/
I think we’ll see this a lot. Donald Trump doesn’t care about anything but power so he’ll be easily captured by various lobbies.
When you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything.
In my opinion, education reform as a “movement” has some basic contradictions and inconsistencies that make it incoherent anyway- Trump will make it worse.
I AM amused that Jeb Bush has dropped the virulent anti-public school rhetoric. Get ready for a marketing reboot of ed reform! They’re pro public schools now 🙂
This is the truth and it absolutely sickens me. Jeb Bush has an extremely distorted view of what’s happening in classrooms and what kids and parents really want. He sees dollar signs. He is ruining the lives of current students, cheating them out of a well rounded education. This is all about getting even with teacher unions, which generally back Democrats. I’m a Republican, but my party is wrong on education. That said, the Democrats (i.e. Obama, Rahm Emmanuel, Patty Murray, Corey Booker, Andy Cuomo, et al) have a pretty bad record, too.
Fed Up Teacher, there are indeed some awful Democrats on education, and you nailed the most prominent among them.
Once the GOP killed off most labor unions, which were the Democratic base, Democrats turned to the same source of funding as Republicans: Wall Street. Sadly, Wall Street is opposed to labor unions and public schools and public anything. So, Democrats like Cuomo, Rahm, Malloy (CT), Booker, etc. are helping to destroy their own party by eviscerating its base. They can’t pretend to be Republicans and expect to maintain their constituency.
“Christian mega-donor”, Foster Freiss, as reported by the Washington Examiner ,wrote a letter to his supporters, on how to counsel “principled evangelical Christian women to vote for Trump”.
Conservatives appear to be hammering in, on the “freedom” angle, for their PR, to gullible followers. It’s the same promo that was used to sell cigarettes. And, just like cigarettes took away users’ ability to be free of the drug, there’s nothing that robs society of more freedom than the conservative right.
It’s not happenstance that Trump’s advisors are linked to Russian strong man, Putin, an authoritarian liar.
Gates Foundation links to evangelical colleges, are they happenstance?
The value of “freedom” to the richest 0.1% was evident in the Philanthropy Roundtable article written by an external affairs manager of a Gates-funded organization and by, AEI’s Frederick Hess. “…reformers… declare, ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools” “,
The authors then suggest money instead of detonation.
Nuns, finally, realized the church hierarchy didn’t value them. The odds that evangelical women will realize the same thing?
Linda,
AEI is also funded by the DeVos family.
The only women, in the religious right, that are listened to, are those with big check books.
Observation:
Trump supporters claim Trump says what they and others think, but are afraid to say.
These are things they think in their darker and/or less intellectual moments. This is how much humor, literature and music work, the shared secret revealed.
Baldwin as Trump says, “I’m going to be president, we’re all going to die.”
Not a productive or intellectual idea, but funny; it of course resonates for obvious reasons.
Shared secrets have power, resonance, but you don’t plan lives based on them, nor do you vote or set national policy based on them. Unless you’re a Twittiot.
Of course, Baldwin’s line is much funnier in context, response to potential calamity due to Obamacare repeal.
http://time.com/4635457/saturday-night-donald-trump-press-conference-alec-baldwin/
Akademos,
Thank you for posting the Alec Baldwin satire on Trump’s press conference. I watched last night and was laughing right through it. I will post separately.
I thought this says it all:
Human Rights Watch Lists Trump as Threat to Human Rights
By Brooke Siepel, The Hill
15 January 17
Human Rights Watch is listing President-elect Donald Trump as a threat to human rights, calling his campaign a “vivid illustration of the politics of intolerance.”
“Donald Trump’s election as US president after a campaign fomenting hatred and intolerance, and the rising influence of political parties in Europe that reject universal rights, have put the postwar human rights system at risk,” the group said in a Friday statement announcing a new report.
The 687-page World Report analyzes Trump’s campaign, pointing to his rhetoric as a cause for worry over human rights violations.
“(Trump’s) campaign floated proposals that would harm millions of people, including plans to engage in massive deportations of immigrants, to curtail women’s rights and media freedoms, and to use torture,” the report says, quoting Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth.
“Unless Trump repudiates these proposals, his administration risks committing massive rights violations in the US and shirking a longstanding, bipartisan belief, however imperfectly applied, in a rights-based foreign policy agenda.”
Human Rights Watch goes on to say that politicians in Europe, as well as Trump, could lead to “tyranny.”
“Trump and various politicians in Europe seek power through appeals to racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and nativism. They all claim that the public accepts violations of human rights as supposedly necessary to secure jobs, avoid cultural change, or prevent terrorist attacks. In fact, disregard for human rights offers the likeliest route to tyranny,” Roth wrote.
Human Rights Watch is a global nonprofit, nongovernment group that does research and reports on human rights conditions in 90 countries.
Its new report analyzed the U.S. election as well as politics across Europe.