Steven Singer says it straight: “Donald Trump lies.”
In a throwaway line in his inaugural speech, Trump said that the nation’s schools are “flush with cash” but failing to teach anything to their students.
To put it bluntly, Donald Trump knows nothing about American education. And he has chosen a Secretary of Education who knows even less than he does.
Steven describes the severe lack of funds that afflict many school districts, especially those in urban areas. School budgets have not grown since the 2008 economic collapse, yet they are expected to subtract funds to pay for charters, vouchers, and cybercharters (most of which perform worse than public schools).
I recommend that Trump and DeVos read my book “Reign of Error,” which shows that test scores are the highest they have been since the early 1970s, when NAEP testing began; that graduation rates are the highest they have ever been in our history; and that dropout rates are the lowest ever, for every racial group. But I have no hope that they will. Trump doesn’t read books, and DeVos is an ideologue whose mind cannot be changed by facts or evidence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Groping Littlefingers Donald Trump and the Deplorable, Despicable Betsy DeVos probably don’t read books unless it was written by a tyrant, a fascist.
You mean they KNOW how to read?
No way to know, but they have the money to pay someone to read to them, or maybe they listen to audio books they buy from an Alt-Right book club’s recommendation list for future fascists.
Lloyd,
My guess is that Trump and Betsy have someone summarize for them
Why read when you don’t have to?
Steve Bannon, an alleged white supremacist and anti-Semite
Maybe Trump and his vulture capitalists are figuring the cash value once they have fired all the legitimate teachers and administrators and replaced them with temp workers and various cyber programs? Then, there should be plenty of money for the bloated administrative salaries at the top of the pyramid.
Thank you Diane for pointing out that: “….. test scores are the highest they have been since the early 1970s, when NAEP testing began; that graduation rates are the highest they have ever been in our history; and that dropout rates are the lowest ever, for every racial group.”
All we hear in the media is public school bashing, our failing schools, failure factories and kids graduating knowing nothing. Even some of the commenters here bash the schools because of some surveys in which the kids don’t know who the allies were in WWII or don’t know that Canada is a separate country or can’t find Washington, DC, on a map, etc.
I’d like to hear similar surveys for the charter, private and religious schools. Oh wait, they are the miracle schools in which all the kids are 5 star scholars.
“Good Times in the Schools”
Flush with cash
From Wall Street crash
Drowned in gold
That Goldman sold
Awash in bucks
From Duncan’s schmucks
Oh, how would he know? He’s probably not “lying”. He just has no idea what he’s talking about.
I mean, seriously. What the heck would this real estate developer and reality show star know about US public schools? Nothing, that’s what. One would do better walking into any public school and asking the first person you see rather than asking Donald Trump.
They’ll be out scolding people in public schools and every single person they are speaking to will know more about the schools than they do.
I know more about US public schools than Donald Trump and I don’t even work in one.
Like hundreds of millions of people in this country (but unlike Donald Trump) I attended one and so did my children. That makes me an expert compared to him.
You would get better information asking for a show of hands on a bus than listening to him.
Well said, Chiara.
Combine this with Devos’ refusal to answer the question about whether she would gut funding to public schools and I think public schools better prepare for another big funding hit from ed reform.
There might be a bright side. They’ve so completely abandoned public schools they are increasingly irrelevant to 90% of people. They’re singing to the charter and private and school choir. We’re not even invited to the performance, which as far as I’m concerned means we no longer have to listen to any of them.
It is Donald who is flush with cash as a consequence of depriving students in his fake university of knowledge. Someone else wrote that speech in spite of his claims and fake picture with a sharpie and hiding the page he was pretending to write upon. The speechwriter got him to make that stupid remark in front of the entire nation. He does not process language properly and probably did not even know he said it until he viewed himself (if he did…probably someone scrubbed it). He has now committed slander against “the education system” for accusing us for the very crime for which he settled for 25 million. Easy civil suit for someone, though there are so many other criminal issues its small potatoes. But real clear evidence. He’ll throw speechwriter under the bus which is probably why the writer got him to pose for the fake picture.
Cecilia, Politico reported today that Trump did not write his speech. It was written by a staff guy named Miller and Mr. Alt-Right Steve Brannon.
Nothing like inviting the alligators to drain the swamp.
Dr. Ravitch; it would make no difference I fear if he read your book. He already “knows it all”, the biggest know it all abysmal ignorant …. the list goes on and on who has EVER occupied the White House.
I just read that the Women’s march in Washington alone is estimated at perhaps a half million people, men included and around the world and the U. S. outpourings also. THIS is the way to combat the agenda of the orange …. BUT it must continue, strongly, the outpouring of outrage. It must not stop if the U. S and indeed a planet habitable for homo sapiens.