Laura Chapman discovered the list of staff hired to work at the U.S. Department of Education. All of the appointments to date are political cronies of Trump or DeVos. None of the high-level positions, which require an ethics review, have been filled. No educators have been appointed to any position.
Chapman writes:
I have been trying to find out who is probably running the show at USDE. Here is a reasonably current list with the GS grade for the appointment. GS-07 means at minimum a bachelor’s degree. I have no idea what the post “Confidential Assistant” means, but it is certainly not a hallmark of transparency in governance. These seeme to be the “crony” positions.
Derrick Bolen-Confidential Assistant to the Secretary-GS-07 Liberty University graduate, BS in Political Science and government. 2016. Trump campaign regional field director for Virginia’s Roanoke and New River Valley region. Tweets offensive but who cares, not the President.http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-appointees-minorities-women-234315
Michael Oberlies-Confidential Assistant to the Secretary-GS-11 No information
Patrick Shaheen-Confidential Assistant to the Secretary-GS-11 Field director for both the NH Republican State Committee and Americans for Prosperity.
Gillum Ferguson-Confidential Assistant to the Secretary-GS-12 Former staffer for Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas, 4th)
Beatriz Ramos-Confidential Assistant to Secretary-GS-12 Florida’s “coalitions director” for the Trump campaign
Alexandra Hudson-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-13 Lead Education Policy Analyst at Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty … Sales Associate at Kohl’s Department Stores, Tutor of political science, graduate of the London School of Economics. Writer for the Federalist.
Deborah Cox-Roush-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Trump Inaugural committee. Owner of DCR Creative Solutions of Florida, “an advocacy consulting and events Management Company.” Florida Grassroots Director for the Trump campaign (she previously worked for Rubio). Graduate of Georgetown College, BA in History/Education, 1976.
Kevin Eck-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Former director of operations for the Indiana Public Charter Schools Association.
Holly Ham-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Former sales executive at Hewlett Packard and Program Advisor to the Trump presidential campaign.
Ronald Holden-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Assistant Dean of Students/Director of Diversity and Inclusion at University of Mount Union.
Amy Jones-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Former CEO of Professional Development and Accountability at NYC Department of Education.
Andrew Kossack-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Former commissioner, Indiana Department of Revenue, was Policy Director for the Foundation for Excellence in Education, prior staff for Governor Mike Pence.
Cody Reynolds-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Former Trump campaign staffer
Eric Ventimiglia-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15 Legislative aid and constituents relations manager for the Michigan House of Representatives. Oakland University, BA in Political Science in 2007.
Jerry Ward-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15—Former Alaska state Senator
Patrick Young-Special Assistant to the Secretary-GS-15- No information
Here are the official at USDE posted on website as of March 24, 2017. This list is quite different from the cronies list above.
Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education
Kathleen S. Tighe, Inspector General, Office of Inspector General
Jason K. Gray, Chief Information Officer, Office of the Chief Information Officer
Tim Soltis, Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Delegated the Duties of the Chief Financial Officer
Phil Maestri, Director, Risk Management Service
Janet Scott, Director, Office for Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization
James W. Runcie, Chief Operating Officer, Federal Student Aid
All of the following positions at USDE are listed as vacant.
Deputy Secretary
Under Secretary
General Counsel, Office of the General Counsel
Assistant Deputy Secretary and Director, Office of English Language Acquisition
Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Innovation and Improvement
Assistant Secretary, Office for Civil Rights
Assistant Secretary, Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education
Assistant Secretary, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
Assistant Secretary, Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs
Assistant Secretary, Office of Management
Assistant Secretary, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development
Assistant Secretary, Office of Postsecondary Education
Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
Director, Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships
Director, Educational Technology
Director, Institute of Education Sciences
Director, International Affairs Office
Executive Director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education
Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans
Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans
Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Performance Improvement Officer
On April 3, 2014 about twenty states will be submitting to USDE their ESSA compliance plans. I think these will probably be unopened and just sit “somewhere” because nobody seems to be in charge of Elementary and Secondary Education. These plans run 150 pages or more and are supposed to be “approved” by someone at USDE after they are thoroughly reviewed.
It is Amateur Hour and “Ask a Trump Crony” time in this and other administative offices. These are the components of the “administrative state” that Steve Bannon and Trump intend to “deconstruct.” That destruction appears to be the job of the cronies, not people competent to make reasoned judgments.
Anyone from a public school or are public school kids still entirely unrepresented in DC?
Pretty ridiculous to have a giant department that excludes the 90% of kids who go to public schools. Can’t they do with 10% of employees in the K-12 division seeing as they only serve charter and private schools?
We could use that money to restore the funding to public schools.
Don’t expect push back from the Democratic politicians. Two, nearly identical, destructive proposals, one originating with the Center for American Progress (Nov. 2016) and, the other, in Marco Rubio’s proposed legislation (March 2017) will have a profound adverse effect on the core values of higher education. A CAP staffer, taking co-credit for the Forbes article, “It’s time for a quality alternative to college accreditation”, was formerly an employee of the Gates-funded New America Foundation.
Professors, nation wide, can no longer defend belonging to either of the major political parties.
Democratic politicians decided not to capitalize on what they know is the most compelling issue for 90% of Americans. Education’s importance, was shown in the objections to DeVos, that resulted in the the “3 busiest days in capitol switchboard history.”
The Dem/Repub party cares about only one thing- money from Wall Street and corporations.
“Crony Capitalism”
A crony is a crony
The party notwithstanding
The cabinet baloney
For years has been expanding
The door is now revolving
Perhaps a little faster
But basic problem solving
Was rarely ever master
Anyone who doubts that need only look at Obama’s cabinet picks.
Democrats recently clutched pearls when Trump appointed Wall Street insiders like former Goldman Sachs execs, but Obama did exactly the same.
People need to get away from the party tribalism, the cheerleading for their home team, because it is really distorting the vision of those in both the major parties.
The whole department needs a “do over” as my kids would say. This could be a good thing providing that they keep the departments involving Title I, Pell grants and college loans and an office for discrimination issues. I would like to see more state control with the Feds standing in the shadows. The USDE was a “feel good” department developed under Jimmy Carter ( a very good human being) that has evolved into a huge blob of money eating bureaucrats spitting out crap education policy. The USDE is kind of like my kids when they have a problem that they don’t know how to solve and they keep throwing time and effort into it until it then becomes unmanageable. Maybe a do over will be a good thing.
Here is a bit more on the people who are working the education beat for Trump.
Jason Botel ( on the list above) was a founder of KIPP charter schools and executive director of MarylandCan, (see also Stanley Buchesky). MarylandCan is part of national network of organizations set up by the Center for Reinventing Public Education and designed to push charter schools and TFA The method is almost always the same. Identify public schools ripe for “takeover” based on the test scores of students. The preservation of tests is/was a major feature of 50FCan and subsideriaries. Then market the need for “high performing seats” based on the enrollments of students in the schools that had low scores on state tests.
One addition to the list:
Rob Goad, a White House aide and former aide to Representative Luke Messer, Indiana. Messer is said to be a major champion of school choice in Congress. In 2014 he founded the Congressional School Choice Caucus.
Cross posted at Oped news.
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Trump-Cronies-Are-Running-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Appointments_Diane-Ravitch_Education_Education-Costs-170327-669.html#comment651882
with this commentary… GO THERE BECAUSE THE LINKS to these pieces ARE EMBEDDED !
MY COMMENT.
Over one hundred thousand experienced teacher -practitioners have been fired in the the last decade…so that the schools would fail. It was crucial for the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX to remove the real voices who KNOW WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, so that the INSTITUTION of Public Education could be decimated and education could become a MARKETPLACE for magic elixirs. http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Anya Kamenetz wrote an illuminating and actually frightening article about Pearson’s ambitious plans to introduce for-profit education around the world. I quote the article at length because it is so important. I urge you to read it in full. It appears in “Wired” magazine.https://dianeravitch.net/2015/04/19/albany-times-union-wake-up-politicians-and-billionaires-this-is-a-revolution/
IT IS A VAST CONSPIRACY. Zephyr Teachout, (Fordham University law professor) released a powerful and shocking–but well documented–reports on the powerful hedge funds that seek to gain control of education in New York state. They are very, very rich. They have no particular expertise in education, nor are they accountable to anyone. Yet they are attempting to privatize one of the most important public institutions of our society. Khan. His contact information is listed below. https://dianeravitch.net/2014/12/03/zephyr-teachout-hedge-funders-and-their-corrupt-effort-to-take-over-public-education-in-new-york/
Look at what the California Billionaires are doing to privatize education https://dianeravitch.net/2016/09/01/california-meet-the-billionaires-who-are-financing-the-spread-of-school-privatization/
and be aware that this is a worldwide takeover of educationby the oligarchs who KNOW that getting people as kids, wins the battle to take over any nation. in this nation, school systems are falling totakeovers by the legislatures, and no educators are placed in key positions.
Just took at Pennsylvania, http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/02/pa-senate-ed-chair-wants-to-trash.html where the leading foe of public education and teachers, John Eichleberger, is the chair of the Senate Education Committee. Everything he proposes is toxic to public
Then read about the Nine billionaires are about to remake NY schools or this one about how New York Hedge Funds Pour Millions of Dollars into Cuomo-Led Bid to Expand Charter Schools
What a terrible potus that Dump is. He never fails to NOT SURPRISE us with BAD THINGS.
IMPEACH! But, wait, he needed a job to bankroll his AWFUL deeds, and who better than the FEDS who get their MONEY from us?
I love the comment “…about twenty states will be submitting to USDE their ESSA compliance plans. I think these will probably be unopened and just sit “somewhere” because nobody seems to be in charge…” It is a comment which feels to be right on the money. From what we’ve seen out of the Trump administration so far, HARD WORK is not a notable facet of the agenda.
There are no words to describe how I feel about these appointments. Never in my life did I expect such turmoil and destruction.
Not sure how to email you. Please see this great post by Thomas Ultican. https://tultican.com/2017/03/27/one-to-one-initiative-threatens-public-education/
The list seems a bit thin. Any word if more of the positions will be filled?
I’m sure there are many applicants. Don’t know why they are so slow.
Didn’t DT want to eliminate the DOE? Why fill all those positions when you have so many Assistant to the Secretaries? Who cares if they don’t have an education background? Arnie didn’t.
This slow filling of vacancies in the USDOE is a feature, not a bug…. and it is happening in every department Mr. Trump wants to eliminate or make small enough to drown in a bathtub.
BUT… Like every politician he spoke of disdainfully, Mr. Trump needs to reward those who did legwork to get him in office and loyalists by giving them a job…. and like every CEO with an over-large ego he needs to reward sycophants as well…. so USDOE seems like a good place to stick people who are wholly unqualified to lead. After all, if they do a terrible job they will prove that the USDOE is worthless!
And watch what happens in the next few months with Obamacare… Mr. Trump will be making sure that it crashes and burns….
Wgersen, you are right. Trump doesn’t want people in the departments. Easier to destroy. But another consideration. Trump has no party. Usually, after a big win, the party has a long list of people in line to fill the jobs. Trump relies on Pence. He has no one but his family.
People criticized Obama endlessly for his education policy. I guess he doesn’t look so bad now, does he?
It’s a dilemma. The for-profit, Gates’ schools-in-a-box/ the data mining opportunities for the tech industry/ the alleged, gender-discriminatory schools- allegedly funding opponents of the Turkish government vs. Jesus schools, with their baggage.
Wait…either political party, we get both.