A conservative cartoonist set off an uproar when he created a carton about poor little Betsy DeVos, based on the iconic Norman Rockwell painting of 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, an African-American child entering a public school escorted by guards.
Betsy DeVos as Ruby Bridges! The definition of chutzpah!
Drip, drip, drip.
Another day, another leak, another national scandal associated with the grifters in the White House.
Read Charles Blow’S alarming column.
“Every day there is a fresh outrage emerging from the murky bog of the Donald Trump administration.
Every day there is a new round of questions and a new set of concerns that raise anxieties and lower trust.
Every day it becomes ever more clear that it is right and just to doubt the legitimacy of this regime and all that flows from it.
The latest round involves the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, who this week was forced to resign following disclosures about his communications with the Russian ambassador on the same day that then-President Obama announced sanctions against Russia for its interference in our election to help Trump and damage Hillary Clinton.
The official reason given for requesting Flynn’s resignation was, according to the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer: “The president was very concerned that General Flynn had misled the vice president and others.”
Spicer continued later, “The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for General Flynn’s resignation.”
Spicer further stated, “The White House counsel reviewed and determined that there is not a legal issue, but rather a trust issue.”
If you are thinking, “Something about this just doesn’t smell right,” you’re right; it stinks. This doesn’t add up and it leads to a multiplying number of questions to which we don’t yet have answers.”
Every day another scandal. Every day, fresh evidence of incompetence or worse.
Four years of this?
Did I say I would stop posting about our national tragedy? Naaaahhhhh.
It is like ignoring a train wreck in your front yard.
In the wake of the horrific Sandy Hook Massacre of 2012, the Obama administration adopted a regulation preventing mentally ill people from buying guns. Today, the Senate voted 57-43 to eliminate that rule.
“By a 57-43 margin, the Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to repeal an Obama-era regulation designed to block certain mentally ill people from purchasing firearms. The vote, which approves a House resolution passed earlier this month, now sends the measure to the White House for President Trump’s signature.
“President Trump, who campaigned as a defender of gun rights and a friend of the National Rifle Association, is widely expected to sign the measure.
“The rule on the verge of rollback would have required the Social Security Administration to report the records of some mentally ill beneficiaries to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Those who have been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs — roughly 75,000 people — would have been affected by the rule, according to NPR’s Susan Davis.
“It was implemented by former President Obama after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which saw 20 students and six teachers killed at an elementary school by 20-year-old Adam Lanza. The Hill reports that the rule was set to take effect in December.”
Are they crazy?
Here comes the alternative facts from the Department of Education.
We all saw the TV news footage of protestors. Blocking the door of Jefferson Middle School in D.C. We saw her rushed away by security. Apparently she came into the school through a side door and completed her visit.
Here, described by Mercedes Schneider, is DeVos’s account of the visit.
She had a delightful and informative visit. We now know that she has actually seen a public school.
Here is the official transcript issued by the White House of Trump’s “listening tour.” Note how he gushes over every parent or teacher not in a public school and how quickly he breezes past a Teacher of special education in a public school. He seems to promise near the end to reduce the rate of autism. He says he visited an amazing charter school in Las Vegas but clearly doesn’t know that most of the charter schools in Nevada are failing schools.
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 14, 2017
Remarks by President Trump at Parent-Teacher Conference Listening Session
Roosevelt Room
10:50 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I am delighted to welcome everybody to the White House. And Betsy DeVos, who has gone through — our new Education Secretary — she went through an interesting moment. And you’re going to do a fantastic job, and I know you would have done it again if you had to do it again, right? (Laughter.)
SECRETARY DEVOS: Probably.
THE PRESIDENT: She had no doubt that final night, waiting for the vote. So I just want to congratulate you. You showed toughness and genius.
As I said many times in my campaign, we want every child in America to have the opportunity to climb the ladder to success. I want every child also to have a safe community, and we’re going to do that very much. We’re going to be helping you a lot — a great school and some day to get a really well-paying job or better, or better; own their own company. And a lot of people are looking at that.
But it all begins with education, and that’s why we’re here this morning. And I’m here also to celebrate a little bit with Betsy because we started this journey a long time ago, having to do with change and so many other good things with education. And I’m so happy that that all worked out.
Right now, too many of our children don’t have the opportunity to get that education that we all talk about. Millions of poor, disadvantaged students are trapped in failing schools and this crisis — and it really is a crisis — of education and communities working together but not working out. And we’re going to change it around, especially for the African American communities. It’s been very, very tough and unfair. And I know that’s a priority and it’s a certainly a priority of mine.
That’s why I want every single disadvantaged child in America, no matter what their background or where they live, to have a choice about where they go to school. And it’s worked out so well in some communities where it’s been properly run and properly done. And it’s a terrific thing.
Charter schools, in particular, have demonstrated amazing gains and results. And you look at the results — we have cases in New York City that have been amazing in providing education to disadvantaged children and the success of so many different schools that I can name throughout the country that I got to see during the campaign. I went to one in Las Vegas; it was the most unbelievable thing you’ve ever seen. And they’ve done a fantastic job.
So there are many such schools and we want to do that on a large-scale basis. We can never lose sight of the connection between education and jobs. I’m bringing a lot of jobs back. We’re bringing a lot of big plants back into the country — everyone said it was impossible. And before I even took office, we started the process and tremendous numbers of plants are coming back into this country — car plants and other plants. And I have meetings next week with four or five different companies, big ones that are going to bring massive numbers of jobs back.
So we’re doing it from the jobs standpoint, but education only makes it better. Our goal is a clear and very safe community, great schools, and we want those jobs that are high-paying jobs — we’ve lost a lot of our best jobs to other countries and we’re going to bring them back.
So I’m going to do my job, and Betsy, at the education level, will do her job. And just to do it very, very formally, I want to congratulate you on having gone through a very tough trial and a very unfair trial, and you won. And there’s something very nice about that. And I’ll tell you the real winner will be the children — I guess a couple of adults (inaudible) — but will be the children of this country. And I just want to congratulate you.
SECRETARY DEVOS: Thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Perhaps we’ll go around the room. And everybody knows our fantastic Vice President, Mike Pence. But if we went around the room, it would be very nice. So why don’t we start? Betsy, you might want to say a few words to us.
SECRETARY DEVOS: Well, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, I am just very honored to have the opportunity to serve America’s students, and I’m really excited to be here today with parents and educators representing traditional public schools, charter public schools, homeschools, private schools, a range of choices. And we’re eager to listen and learn from you your ideas for how we can ensure that all of our kids have an equal opportunity for a high-quality, great education and therefore an opportunity for the future.
So again, I just wanted to have the opportunity to serve, and looking forward to fulfilling the mission that you set forward.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s our honor — believe me, Betsy.
Kenneth.
MR. SMITH: Ken Smith, educator helping at-risk kids get through school. Vice President, it actually has the largest application of jobs for America’s graduates in the country. And in a minute we’ll talk about that as a solution.
THE PRESIDENT: Great. Good.
Laura.
MS. PARRISH: Laura Parrish, I’m from Falls Church, Virginia. I homeschool my 10- and my 13-year-old.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Very good.
Mary.
MS. RINER: My name is Mary. I’m a charter school parent here in D.C., and considered the best school in America.
THE PRESIDENT: You think, huh? (Laughter.)
MS. RINER: I know.
THE PRESIDENT: I like that.
MS. RINER: According to U.S. News & World Report.
THE PRESIDENT: Really? Is that right? Wow.
Jennifer.
MS. COLEMAN: I am Jennifer Coleman. I am from Prince William County, Virginia. I am the mother of six, and I homeschool my oldest four; they are grades kindergarten through seven. And before that I was a private school teacher.
THE PRESIDENT: Very good.
MR. CIRENZA: Bartholomew Cirenza. I’m a parent of seven, and my kids have gone through both private and public school, and I see differences, and —
THE PRESIDENT: Big difference.
MR. CIRENZA: Big difference.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay.
MS. BAUMANN: Good morning, I’m Julie. I teach special education at a public school in New Jersey.
THE PRESIDENT: Very good. Thank you.
MS. QUENNVILLE: Hi, I’m Jane Quennville, and I’m a principal of a special-ed center in Virginia serving children ages five through twenty-two with autism and physical and medically fragile conditions.
THE PRESIDENT: How is that going?
MS. QUENNVILLE: Well —
THE PRESIDENT: Have you seen an increase in the autism with the children?
MS. QUENNVILLE: Yes, yes. In fact, our school has shifted its population — saw more children with autism, definitely.
THE PRESIDENT: So what’s going on with autism? When you look at the tremendous increases, really, it’s such an incredible — it’s like really a horrible thing to watch, the tremendous amount of increase. Do you have any idea? And you’re seeing it in the school?
MS. QUENNVILLE: Yes, I think — I mean, I think the statistics, I believe, are 1 in 66, 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with autism.
THE PRESIDENT: And now it’s going to be even lower —
MS. QUENNVILLE: Probably.
THE PRESIDENT: — which is just amazing. Well, maybe we can do something.
MS. BONILLA: I am Carol Bonilla. I teach Spanish in a private elementary school in Arlington. I teach the students in fourth through eighth grade.
THE PRESIDENT: Very good. Thank you.
MS. VIANA: Good morning, Mr. Vice President, Mr. President. My name is Aimee Viana. I’m the parent of two children — fifth grade and second grade — and I live right outside of Raleigh, North Carolina in Cary, and I’m also a former educator in public and private schools.
THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. Thank you. So thank you all very much. Let’s get going.
END
10:58 P.M. EST
This morning I asked you to comment on whether I should post less about Trump and more about education.
Hundreds of readers responded.
Most said that politics and education are inseparable. One reminded me of Dewey’s classic book “School and Society,” which reinforced the point that we educate children so as to prepare them to build a better society. We teach them civility so they will be civil to others. We teach them to think and inform themselves so they will be thinking citizens. Over time, if we educate our children well, it will make our society better. We invest in our future by educating our students well.
A few readers said I should write about education and leave Trump alone. This is actually impossible, because Trump wants to destabilize and defund public education. He and his choice for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, want public schools to compete for dollars with charters, cybercharters, religious schools, for-profit schools, and home-schooling, all funded by the public. He is not proposing new funding to pay for all these choices. He intends to defund public schools by dividing the funding many ways. The preponderance of research says that none of these alternatives are superior to public schools. Some are far, far worse.
Then there is Betsy DeVos. What an insult to educators and parents and students to select a Secretary of Education who is unqualified and hostile to public schools. She has spent thirty years dedicated to school choice.
So the bottom line is that I will Tweet the news that you can easily find on mainstream TV and radio and newspapers.
But I will continue to write about education, the politics of education, the history of education, and the importance of public schools.
I will continue to post silly things and funny things that appeal to me.
I will continue to oppose privatization of public schools, demonization of educators, and the misuse of standardized testing to rank children and schools.
I count on you to join the conversation. Keep me informed.
Oh, and I will write whatever I want.
Thanks to reader Chiara, who sent this video:
“You have to watch the DeVos/Trump “listening session”
“Trump is reading off sheets of paper and he goes on and on and on- all bragging- and everyone else sits around and listens to him.
“They invited those poor people there and then Trump bored them to death talking about himself.
“They don’t seem to know how bad this is. It isn’t a “listening session”. It’s an “everyone sit around and listen to this braggart bore talk about himself”
A new report from the Federal Government Accountability Office criticized charter schools in D.C. for their high suspension rates. Will Betsy DeVos care?
Washington Post columnist Joe Davidson writes:
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says suspension and expulsion rates for charters in the capital city are double the national rate and disproportionately high for black students and those with disabilities.
During the 2013-2014 school year, for example, “D.C charter schools had about a 13 percent suspension rate, while the national rate for all charter schools was about 6 percent,” the GAO reported. “This was also true for expulsions, with charter schools in D.C. reporting double the rate of charter schools nationally.”
The agency that oversees charter schools in the District acknowledges it has issues, but it also had problems with the GAO’s findings. In a response included in the report, the D.C. Public Charter School Board said the GAO “reaches some inaccurate conclusions and from these draws ill-advised recommendations” because it did not use more recent data.
Data from the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years show that “steady and significant progress has been made every year in reducing out-of-school discipline,” the board said in response.
If there is good news here, it’s only by comparison. D.C. charter suspension and expulsion rates did fall from the 2011-2012 to the 2013-2014 academic years. Also, the charter suspension rate is only a little higher than that of the city’s traditional public schools.
But that’s not good enough.
When D.C. charter schools kick students out, they are not allowed to return, the GAO reported. They generally transfer to a traditional public school.
“In contrast, D.C. traditional public schools generally do not expel students,” the GAO said. “Instead, D.C. traditional public schools generally use long-term suspensions (greater than 11 days) and temporarily transfer these students to an alternative middle and high school.”
It’s no surprise that the greater suspension and expulsion rates for charter schools fall heavily on black students. From preschool discipline and throughout the criminal justice system, studies have shown that black people are treated more harshly than white people for similar conduct.
The GAO “found that the rates of suspension for Black students in D.C. charter schools were about six times higher than the rates for White students and the rates for students with disabilities were almost double the rates for students without disabilities.”
Myra Blackmon writes for Online Athens in Georgia.
In this post, she explains why vouchers are not needed in Georgia.
With the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as U.S. secretary of education, we can expect to see a flurry of new “initiatives” designed to address the so-called education problem in our country. For the moment, let’s set aside the relationship of poverty and poor academic achievement. Ignore for a moment the fact that our schools are actually performing pretty well.
“We will likely see a renewed push for voucher programs, where parents can supposedly take the tax money allocated for their children and use it to enroll them in private, religious or charter schools, many of which are combinations of those categories.
“If I believed vouchers would improve educational outcomes for Georgia’s poorest children, I would be the first to jump on that bandwagon. The reality is that even vouchers aren’t likely to improve the lives of the 600,000 Georgia children who live in poor or low-income families, despite efforts of reformers to convince us otherwise.
“First, it will be almost impossible to set a fair amount for a voucher. I spent over an hour looking at websites of private schools in all parts of the state. I found tuition ranges from around $4,000 a year to $26,000 a year. One site says the average elementary school tuition is almost $9,000, and high school almost $11,000. How do you determine an amount that would give children “the best education?”
“Second, not all non-public schools are open to all children. The majority of private schools in Georgia are religious schools, many of which set very strict standards for admission that have little or nothing to do with academic potential. They would exclude children from families of same-sex couples, or families whose moral standards are, in the judgment of the school, not consistent with the school’s values. That might exclude children whose parents are not married, or who were behavioral problems at their previous school.
“Third, few private schools provide special education. Of those that do, many limit that special education to mild learning disabilities, or limit them to mild ADHD or other learning differences. The private special education schools I found charged tuition upward of $25,000 a year, and even they don’t address severe or complex disabilities. Only public schools are required to meet all those needs.”
There is more. Read it all.
Texas has a Lt. Governor named Adan Patrick who hates public schools. Before he was elected to the legislature, he was a radio talk show host, a small-time rightwing shock jock. Patrick’s favorite cause is vouchers and defunding public schools. He needs to be reminded that “school choice” originated as the battle cry of white segregationists after the Brown decision of 1954. But maybe he knows that.
In this legislative session, vouchers will once again be debated. The Texas Senate, dominated by the hard right, will support them. The House will wage a spirited battle over them. In the past, vouchers died in the House because of a coalition of urban Democrats and rural Republicans who treasure their public schools. Under the leadership of the House Speaker Joe Strauss, vouchers have not been approved. But the potential for passage is always there.
One of the most effective opponents of vouchers is the group Pastors for Texas Children, led by Rev. Charles Foster Johnson. It has 2,000 members across the state of Texas and is helping to organize similar groups of pro-public school clergy in other states.
Here is his most recent statement in response to Governor Greg Abbott’s endorsement of vouchers.
This is what he wrote:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said today that school choice voucher programs constitute “a civil rights issue” and said he would sign a school choice bill if one comes to him.
With all due respect to Gov. Abbott, voucher-type schemes are the antithesis of civil rights.
“School choice” voucher programs re-segregate our schools according to race.
“School choice” vouchers are not for poor children, as they are purported to be, because they don’t begin to cover the cost of a private school education.
“School choice” vouchers underwrite the private education of families affluent enough to send their children to private schools.
“School choice” vouchers violate religious liberty by establishing and advancing religious schools with public tax dollars.
“School choice” vouchers are unconstitutional because they do not “make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools” as the Texas Constitution mandates the Texas Legislature to do.
“School choice” vouchers deplete the funding of the public schools that do not screen or discriminate, but accept and love all children regardless of race and class.
“School choice” vouchers destabilize and overburden the traditional neighborhood public school.
“School choice” vouchers expand and extend government into the sacred and private spheres of our home and church schools.
“School choice” voucher programs do not improve the education of children who receive them.
“School choice” vouchers are not a real “choice” at all, except for those who would privatize the public trust of education for all children, making commodities of our kids and markets of our classrooms.
The American civil rights tradition was forged by values of human dignity and equality taught and modeled for our children every day in traditional public schools. Hijacking the term “civil rights” to advance the narrow private interest of “school choice” vouchers is morally wrong, and we call upon Gov. Abbott and other Texas state leaders to cease doing so now.
Diane Ravitch's blog 