The Network for Public Educations vows to carry the fight for a qualified Secretary of Education to the Senate floor.
We now have more than 300,000 members, located in every state.
We will fight for a Secretary of Education who will uphold the laws, support the right to an education for all children, and strengthen our public schools.
NPE just released this statement:
Although disappointed by the decision of the HELP committee to send the vote on Betsy DeVos to the Senate floor, The Network for Public Education (NPE) was pleased by the strong opposition to DeVos. All Democrats voted against DeVos. Senators Collins of Maine and Murkowski of Alaska while voting to move her nomination forward, would not commit to voting for her when the vote comes to the full Senate.
“Betsy DeVos put a spotlight on the threat to public education that charters-both online and brick and mortar, and private voucher schools pose to our democratically governed, community public schools. Public school advocates across the nation spoke out. Our campaign against DeVos generated over 600,000 emails and thousands of phone calls and letters to the Senate. Most Americans do not want an unregulated, privatized school system paid for by American taxpayers. That is what DeVos represents,” said NPE Executive Director, Carol Burris.
NPE President, Diane Ravitch, believes the massive political donations by DeVos was the driving factor behind her appointment. “We are disappointed but not surprised that Betsy DeVos was approved by the Senate HELP committee, despite the fact that she is completely unqualified for the job by experience or knowledge or any other criteria. As she has acknowledged, she and her family have given millions of dollars to the Republican party, including to members of the committee that just approved her. We weep for the children of America, knowing that this woman will launch an assault on their community public schools, as she did in Michigan. Since her choice theology was implemented in Michigan, that state’s rankings on national tests have plummeted, and Detroit–now flooded with charters–remains the lowest performing urban district on national tests. We will continue to fight this nomination as it moves forward.“
NPE Executive Board member, Phyllis Bush, lives in Indiana, a state the embraces the DeVos philosophy. “While the members of the HELP committee can talk about the importance of using a business model to reform public schools, the ultimate cost to Indiana is landing on the backs of students. Privatization reform has resulted in larger class sizes, tests that provide little useful information, school letter grades that reward zip codes, the elimination of essential services in public schools, and a critical teacher shortage.”
The Network for Public Education intends to mobilize its over 300,000 supporting members to continue the fight against DeVos’ appointment.
“When it comes to our fight for adequately funded, democratically-governed public schools, we make ‘no excuses’.” Our neighborhood schools made our country great. We will not allow them to be destroyed,” Burris said.
Delighted to see this…Diane…you speak for me and for Joining Forces for Education.
I’m with NPE and with Joining Forces. Ready to stand, ready to fight.
Who is a moderate candidate for this job? Any suggestions?
If DeVos doesn’t get approved, I am for Bill Evers of the Hoover Institution. Conservative but not an evangelical extremist
Is there a way to promote Evers?
Not unless DeVos is stopped
Evers is conservative, hates Common Core, is libertarian. Not evangelical.
Thank you, Diane.
Should we prepare for a march?
YES…
If Diane and Carol and NPE decide to use our now 300K strong group, each city should have teachers (and those who love and respect them, and our public schools) march on either the BoE building or the City Hall…but this needs to be up and running very fast.
Chicago teachers did this a few years ago in protest to the closing of 24 schools. The rest of us could do it as well…though some us will need the young teachers pushing wheel chairs of the elders.
I can’t express how proud I am to be a member of NPE and how much admiration I have for my fellow members, stepping up to the fight against the awful nomination of Betsy DeVos by the illegitimate “president,” named “Dumb Dump!”
Thank you, Puget Sound Parent.
NPE has become the largest national organization of parents, educators and other concerned citizens fighting for public education.
DeVos has awakened many people to the real threat of privatization.
We will be vigorous in opposing her and in helping friends of public schools in every state.
YES!!!!!!!! On Wed, Feb 1, 2017 at 5:16 AM Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “The Network for Public Educations vows to carry the > fight for a qualified Secretary of Education to the Senate floor. We now > have more than 300,000 members, located in every state. We will fight for a > Secretary of Education who will uphold the law” >
Just say this over and over anyone who will listen: “Vouchers are a polite way of saying ‘segregation’.
In Michigan, where the DeVos experiment is taking place, there are 200 schools slated to close – all black. Economic segregation ends up being racial segregation.
The poor can’t use vouchers for schools outside their neighborhoods because of transportation costs and copays for higher tuition in prosperous neighborhoods. Vouchers may give the illusion of choice, but in actual practice they are just an excuse for corporate takeover and the elimination of elected school boards.
The resulting lack of oversight will allow DeVos to shove her ideology down kids’ throats, hand business to her corporate charter school buddies and charge the whole experiment to taxpayers.
Funny thing though, the experiment is already failing; her schools rank in the bottom 15% among all in Michigan.
What do you mean by “her schools”?
Right on, Diane…”her schools” indeed…NOT.
Woops. Brain fatigue. By “her schools”, I meant the charter system that she has lobbied for and in instances financially backed.
I hope that Dr. Jerry Falwell Jr. will join Dr. Ravitch to advise Betty DeVos to respect Public’s intention and goodwill.
That is what Christ has done for people – love the powerless unconditionally.
Betty DeVos misuses Christian concept to achieve her own lust for power and for building her family wealth. It is sad to see greed corporate that is too blind to enforce and to impose its BAD INTENTION upon American Public. Back2basic
Putting Falwell in charge of higher ed is unbelievable. There is no person who is less suited for this role than the leader of a Christian college with such low academic results and based on radical religious philosophy. He and DeVos will pair to destroy American ed. Our serious and gifted students will go overseas when American higher ed is downgraded to suit these two religious fanatics.
I can see it now…no more studying genetics or cultural anthropology. Students will be mandated to study King James Bible as history, and will produce teachers, as his school does now, who teach that the dinosaurs roamed the earth with early man only 5K years ago.
Can you imagine him setting policy for the public U.of California system which has the two top public universities in the nation, Berkeley and UCLA? Or for the prestigious Ivy League schools which turn out many Nobelists and foremost scientists, lawyers, doctors, professors, government leaders like most of our real and ‘legitimate’ presidents?
Drumpf is having fun flipping us the all the middle finger.
I feel as if it is likely that he isn’t really smart enough to see the big picture, and thus isn’t so much purposefully flipping us the middle finger as simply hopping on board with whichever opportunist catches his ear.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
(Shrug)
DeVos is going to be appointed regardless.
As I have said, she is going to be a step up from the weasel, Duncan. Look at the reaction she is already drawing from the people who SHOULD have opposed Duncan, but couldn’t do anything more than shuffle and cough because Duncan was Obama’s choice — the Democratic president’s choice — and because Duncan the weasel worked so hard to hide being what DeVos is so refreshingly open and honest about being.
DeVos is unmasking the corporate education reform movement — and we have needed someone to do that for years now.
She’s a horrendous choice, of course — a national embarrassment. But we NEED one, now.
With the charter school industry favored by nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos bleeding vital funds from the public’s schools, the thoughtful person will ask: “Why are hedge funds the main backers of the private charter school industry? After all, hedge funds are not known for an altruistic interest in educating children.”
Well, the answer, of course, is MONEY.
For example, look at DeVos’ home state of Michigan: There are 1.5 million children attending public elementary and secondary schools and the state annually spends about $11,000 per student which adds up to pot of about $17 billion that private charter school operators have their eyes on. If these private operators succeed in getting what DeVos wants to give them — the power to run all the schools — these private profiteers could make almost $6 billion in profit just by firing veteran teachers and replacing them with low-paid inexperienced teachers, which is what the real objective of so-called “Value-Added” evaluations of veteran teachers is all about.
But wait! There’s more!
In fact, there are many more ways that big profits are being made every day right now by the private charter school industry. Here are just some:
The Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education has issued a warning that charter schools posed a risk to the Department of Education’s own goals. The report says: “Charter schools and their management organizations pose a potential risk to federal funds even as they threaten to fall short of meeting the goals” because of the financial fraud, the skimming of tax money into private pockets that is the reason why hedge funds are the main backers of charter schools.
The Washington State Supreme Court, the New York State Supreme Courts, and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled that charter schools are not public schools because they aren’t accountable to the public since they aren’t governed by publicly-elected boards and aren’t subdivisions of public government entities, in spite of the fact that some state laws enabling charter schools say they are government subdivisions. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL” because no charter school fulfills the basic public accountability requirement of being responsible to and directed by a school board that is elected by We the People. Charter schools are clearly private schools, owned and operated by private entities. Nevertheless, they get public tax money.
Even the staunchly pro-charter school Los Angeles Times (which acknowledges that its “reporting” on charter schools is paid for by a billionaire charter school advocate) complained in an editorial that “the only serious scrutiny that charter operators typically get is when they are issued their right to operate, and then five years later when they apply for renewal.” Without needed oversight of what charter schools are actually doing with the public’s tax dollars, hundreds of millions of tax money that is supposed to be spent on educating the public’s children is being siphoned away into private pockets.
Charter schools should (1) be required by law to be governed by school boards elected by the voters so that they are accountable to the public; (2) a charter school entity must legally be a subdivision of a publicly-elected governmental body; (3) charter schools should be required to file the same detailed public-domain audited annual financial reports under penalty of perjury that genuine public schools file; and, (4) anything a charter school buys with the public’s money should be the public’s property.
NO PUBLIC TAX MONEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO GO TO CHARTER SCHOOLS THAT FAIL TO MEET THESE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE PUBLIC.