The Senate agreed by a vote of 52-48 to move to a vote on the DeVos nomination. Two Republican senators will vote against her. Unless one Republican breaks ranks, the vote will be 50-50, and VP Pence will cast a tie-breaking vote for her.
Public reaction has been intense and negative. Senator Toomey’s office received 8,000 faxes against DeVos in one hour.
Read Senator Patti Murray’s comment in the story.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is so sad that we have senators who are just predijuce and not evaluating the person for the position. Rather, this is about corruption and voting for a party and not voting for the person under consideration. I really feel sad for the ignorant republican senators who voted for Devos knowing the hell she created in the once great state of Michigan.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
Sad sad sad
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I wrote a letter to Senators Fischer (NE) and Moran (KS).
https://davidrtayloreducation.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/speedy-recovery-and-well-wishes/
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Reblogged this on rjknudsen.
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The fact that Collins and Murkowski voted yes on cloture (as they voted to approve the DeVos nomination in committee) signals that the fix is in. As many have speculated in previous comments, they were given a free pass by McConnell in order to claim to their constituents that they voted against DeVos but it would have no practical effect of blocking her confirmation. I’m sure they’re going to schedule the final vote at a time when it is convenient for Pence to be there to break the tie vote.
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As usual spot on . A lesson that goes back a long long time. As for the vote 11P.M. on a Friday night.
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Notes from a probable phone conversation:
Lisa Murkowski: Hi, Bets? Its me Lisa. Just wanted to let you know what was going on.
Betsy DeVos: Hi, Leess! I know, I know, don’t worry! Mitch just filled me in.
LM: I felt I owed you an explanation. You know I’d be with you, but those folks back home won’t be quiet and I needed to throw them a bone to get them off my back. Look, I spoke to Mitch and he said he had cover for me. The votes are there and Mikey will cast the deciding one. I made sure to vote for you in committee and on cloture today. Susie did the same, but with her, you know, it’s more about posturing and maintaining an appearance of independence, but she’s always with us in the end. You know how good she is at fooling the home folks year after year.
BM: Don’t you worry about a thing. Stevie Bannon called me last week to explain everything. I didn’t understand that stuff about cloture—never even heard that word before—and you know how little I pay attention to rules.
LM: Bets, I’ll have to say some mean things when I announce my vote against you, but I just need that to send to my voters. They don’t get all that stuff about committee and cloture votes either. They think my vote against you is all that counts! (both laugh heartily)
BM: Look, once this all blows over, Dick and I want to have you and Vern join us at the club. Let’s do it in the spring when the weather’s better and everyone forgets about this confirmation stuff. Leess, I know I can count on you. We’ll have plenty to do in Alaska once I get my hands on the department’s money. You know how I love to spend money!
LM: Thanks so much, Bets!! You, Dick and your whole family have been so good to me. I didn’t want to appear to be ungrateful. I promise to make it up to you.
BM: I know you will, Leess. And we’ll be there for you whenever you need us.
LM: That’s great to hear! Look, I have to run. Mitch and I have to talk about Ricky Perry’s confirmation vote.
BM: Give my best to Mitch and let Ricky know he owes me dance!
LM: Will do, Bets. You are so sweet!
BM: Hugs, Leess!
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BD not BM
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It seems as if she was put in for one reason and one reason only- to establish a federal voucher plan.
All other considerations were ignored to reach that goal.
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The Democratic party isn’t willing to capitalize on the opportunity, afforded by widespread popular protest against public school privatization. N.M.’s Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, interviewed in the Washington Post, discussed activism related to resistance to Trump- no mention of the DeVos conflict.
Conservative Leaders for Education posted a recommended list of Trump Secretaries of Ed. The list included, a Fellow, of the Gates-funded Pahara Institute, N.M.’s Hanna Skandera.
Portman’s offices still aren’t taking calls.
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I don’t care what anyone in ed reform says – it is nuts to have a US Department of Education opposed to the schools 90% of kids attend.
That’s insane. They can quibble over details but the basic premise of this whole agenda is bizarre.
How do they see this playing out? Federal employees attacking public schools on the public dime? DeVos arrives at a public school and does what? Delivers her speech on how public schools are a “dead end”?
This “movement” has gone off the rails. They’re so zealously dedicated to choice they’re willing to throw 90% of kids under the bus and in the process become completely irrelevant to 90% of people.
Ed reform adds no value to public schools. None. They offer nothing.
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Are you ignoring the profit to be made from banal cost cutting and the opportunities for cash from data mining ?
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Public schools adopting ed reform policy and practice is mostly voluntary. All that public schools are REQUIRED to do is follow federal law.
Ed reform has to offer them some value. What does ed reform offer public schools that public schools can’t do better themselves?
Nothing.
I would actually be pleased if my son’s school rejected MORE ed reform fads. At this point I think they’re an actual drag on the school, a net loss.
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Agree with you, Chiara. The schools that our communities pay for, for the benefit of our kids, should resist money-making schemes from the hedge funds and tech industry.
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It isn’t just DeVos either. Here’s congressional Republicans education initiatives so far:
https://www.the74million.org/article/while-devos-drama-took-centerstage-congressional-republicans-push-school-choice-bills
Nothing for public schools. They offer nothing of value to anyone who attends or supports a public school.
It’s as if public schools don’t exist in the echo chamber.
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I live and teach in Pennsylvania. I wrote to both my senators. Got a nice personal response from Bob Casey listing all the reasons why he will vote against DeVos. Got a response from Toomey which extolled her many “virtues”. He’s in for another six years and clearly could care less about what the people who voted against him think about DeVos. I think it’s in the bag and what we need to do is expect the worst from a department which was also terrible under Obama, and intensify our focus and energies on what is happening at the state level. Here in the Keystone state the Republicans are moving forward with their annual attempts to take away seniority, withhold resources from urban districts, repeal voluntary deductions of dues, and move the state towards becoming right to work (for less). Glad I’m retiring in June. Sorry for those with years to go before they can collect a pension which may or may not be there for them. Wondering when the Democrats and our union leaders will grow some spine and whether they will pull out all the stop to keep the illegitimate Gorsuch from taking a seat on the Supreme Court which will likely mean, among other catastrophes, the destruction of our unions.
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I’m glad my youngest is almost out of public schools, and then I feel guilty for being glad.
I consider these people to be actively working against his school. Not one benefit in 15 years of this “movement” dominating at both the state and federal level. No upside.
The most amazing part to me is they don’t feel they have to even OFFER an upside to public school parents. It’s all scolding and lectures and grim technocrats with clipboards. What public school parent in their right mind would get behind this? It is RELENTLESSLY negative.
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If what the Post writes is true, that Senators on both sides have been inundated with calls against DeVos, and yet they continue to stiffly stick to rank and vote her in, 2017 may well be the year they find out how serious the revolt against their attack on public schooling really is. I believe that the marches in the streets are only about Trump, but about many out-of-touch abuses.
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The R’s have the vote numbers today. But, majorities are fleeting, and their numbers may change in 2018. We all have long memories. JVK
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Trump meeting with ass hole scott walker who just loves to bust unions. What is it that drives scott walker and his sorry existance?? This guy walker has a hot pants for unions yet he trolls around wisconsin driving his motorcycle trying to look like a regular guy. Scott walker has the hots for unions and gets off seeing unions that get busted. The question is why? What is it that drives scott walker to use his precious time here on earth to go after unionized workers who are hard working people?? There are so many things that scott walker could do with his time but this jerk off seems fixed on getting unions busted!!! I cannot believe that this guy walks the streets without any body guards after all the people in wisconsin now have suffered and are now living and working in a right to work for less state…Now, you mean to tell me that wimpy scott walker wants to destroy the unions here in NYC?? The same unions that built this great city are now facing midget maniacs like scott walker who sit on their toilet bowls dreaming of how they can bust the union. Wow man the human race has taken an ill turn and Trump is correct….the world is a complete mess and in many cases its because of people like scott walker who sold themselves to the $$$$$$. IN the case of scott walker he is a paid troll for the koch brothers who are the devil in disguise.
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In 2011, Bill Gates, in a radio address, used the same rationales to criticize public pensions that the Koch’s State Budget Solutions use and, that the anti-pension Laura and John Arnold use. Washington, the state that Bill Gates lives in, has the most regressive tax system in the nation. The poor pay a rate up to 7 times the rate that the rich pay.
Bill Gates, the man not his foundation, is an investor in the largest seller of schools-in-a-box. In a report from Uganda, where the product is sold, a parent was quoted, “Don’ make money on our poor backs.” The World Bank promotes the school-in-a-box product, whose founder described, as a model with a 20% return, to the exclusion of public schools.
In answer to your question, Gates like the Koch’s remain at the top of the richest men lists, suggesting they like money. Speculating… men, like Walker, like to genuflect at the feet of the moneyed.
There’s research that found sociopaths enjoy preying on the weak.
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Gates attacked teacher pensions before 2011.
In fact, he attacked them less than two weeks after Randi Weingarten had him as the keynote speaker at the 2010 AFT convention.
The so-called reformers are evil, but they had help from ostensibly strange bedfellows in getting credibility.
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Speculating- CAP would think twice about Corey Booker as the keynote speaker at its recent “Progress Party”, if teachers’ unions and their rank and file had the same goals.
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There will be a price paid by republican senators who refuse to vote according to the wishes of the parents they are supposed to represent. The price will be their careers.
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Vote was 52 (R) – 48 (D)
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More proof the Corporate-controlled Congress has little to no interest in what their constituents desire. Imagine a number of them are hoping DeVos does fail in her new role – more fodder to disenfranchise education in general, ignore the needs of special ed students, encourage privatization, and ultimately make the DE an agency of the past.
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I did not yet read the article. but something about the numbers of that vote bothers me/
I was under the impression that all Democratic Senators had committed to vote no on the DeVos confirmation. Therefore, with two Republican senators committed to voting No, we need one more Republican crossover to stop the confirmation.
The post above says the vote was 58-42 to go ahead with the DeVos confirmation vote. As there are only 52 Republican Senators (two of whom said they will vote No), that means some Democratic Senators voted yes on the vote. Are they sill committed to voting no on the confirmation? Why then did they vote Yes to have the vote?
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Mike, my error.
The vote was straight party line, 52-48.
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With the charter school industry that’s 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 fund people the main backers of the private charter school industry? After all, hedge funds are not known for a selfless 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.
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PS to my prior comment. On reading the article, it seems that the vote tally in the original post at the top is incorrect. The article says that the procedural vote this morning was a strict party line vote-52-48 (all Republicans for all Dems against). So all Democratic Senators did vote against on this vote.
Strange though, that the two Republican Senators who said they would vote against confirmation, voted yes on this procedural vote? I guess it is hedging their bet, to not totally antagonize their Republican colleagues and Republican voters, to says they voted for the vote, even if ultimately voting against her?
In fact, one of the Republican Senators who said she would vote No is on the education committee, and voted with all other Republicans on that committee to approve the nomination. (While all Dems on the committee voted no.) But she said she would vote against confirmation on the final vote.
So hopefully (although I am not sure) we still have all 48 Democratic Senators to vote against confirmation on the final vote next week, as well as two Republican Senators, making a tie, and we need still need to convince one more Republican Senator to vote No.
It is strange though, if one is against her confirmation, to vote yes on committee, to vote yes on today’s procedural vote, etc. Would that help those Republican Senators with constituents or colleagues who are unhappy about a final No vote by that Senator? I don’t think so. If someone is unhappy with the final No vote of a Senator., these other intermediary yes votes won’t help that.
I think it still stands as before–we need one more Republican Senator to cross over. (Let’s hope those other two are still aboard..)
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Diane: The GOFUNDME page just made Rachel Maddow show.
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Republicans breaking ranks. They’ll be more than you think soon enough. Their party is over if they don’t operate and cut out the cancer quickly.
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A little about the “tone” today, Feb. 3, from a News Alert, the Washington Post re: Trump’s Immigration Order:
All QUOTED BELOW but my emphases:
“My advice to POTUS — attack the decision (it’s weak) not the judge,” Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho), who had backed Trump’s immigration order, wrote on Twitter. “Liberals are imploding, don’t make personal attacks the story.”
Democrats were not shy. “The president’s attack . . . shows a disdain for an independent judiciary that doesn’t always bend to his wishes and a continued lack of respect for the Constitution,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.
Leahy said Trump “seems intent on precipitating a constitutional crisis.”
Even as Trump’s administration complied with the orders of U.S. District Judge James L. Robart, the president blasted out his unhappiness with an extraordinarily personal criticism.
“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!” Trump tweeted in Saturday morning. On a weekend trip to Florida, Trump went off to play golf, then returned to Twitter in the afternoon to say “many very bad and dangerous people may be pouring into our country” because of the judicial decision.
Trump exaggerated the impact of Robart’s order, and Democrats charged that the president was trying to intimidate the independent judiciary. “The president’s hostility toward the rule of law is not just embarrassing, it is dangerous,” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a statement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-administration-appeals-to-restore-travel-ban-says-earlier-ruling-was-second-guessing-the-president/2017/02/05/6fcdbb5a-eb4c-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?utm_term=.1d92266f288c&wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation
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Trump will never stop personal attacks. It is baked into his DNA. They are a source of power as he can destroy people or corps with a tweet
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Great op Ed in the NYTimes this morning by Eric Posner, University of Chicago Law School, encouraging Democratic Senators to question Gorsuch on his opinion of Trump’s attack on the judge who stayed the ban, as well as his prior attacks on the independence of the judiciary (eg, Judge Curiel). Any answer supporting Trump or even dodging the question should be yet another reason disqualifying this so-called constitutionalist from taking the Garland seat.
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