People who came into education have a strange penchant to work for ultra-conservative politicians, like John White in Louisiana, Kevin Huffman in Tennessee, and Eric Guckian, who was education advisor to the far-right North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.
Now comes this news via Politico Pro. I can’t give you a link because I don’t have a subscription (they told me it costs $3,500 and I run a very low-cost shop here):
A senior Trump administration education adviser is expected to move into a new role at the Education Department, according to multiple sources familiar with the shift who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak about personnel issues.
Jason Botel, the former executive director of the Maryland education advocacy group, MarylandCAN, joined the Trump administration in January as senior White House adviser for education.
One source said he is being considered for a deputy assistant secretary position at the agency’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, which serves as a key partner to states and school districts in matters spanning pre-K through high school. The position is politically appointed but isn’t Senate-confirmable.
Neither Botel, nor an Education Department spokesman responded to requests for comment.
In recent months, Botel had helped an understaffed Education Department in various roles.
Botel shocked some of his colleagues by joining the Trump administration earlier this year. He had donated $400 to former President Barack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008. Those who know him say he’s passionate about strong accountability standards, and racial and social justice issues — priorities embraced by the Obama administration. Botel joined Teach for America out of college, teaching in Baltimore public schools, and later brought the charter school network, KIPP, to Baltimore.
You will note that Botel worked for Maryland CAN, which exists to encourage privatization via charter schools. After he left Governor McCrory’s office, he worked at TFA’s Leadership for Educational Excellence, which trains ex-TFA to run for office. Acquaintances believe that his appointment suggests a renewed emphasis on standards, testing, and accountability. Interesting that someone would feel equally comfortable working for Obama and then Trump. A flexible mind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Interesting that someone would feel equally comfortable working for Obama and then Trump.”
I see no evidence to support that assessment. Is there any?
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Read the post, Stephen. Same guy, two different administrations. Or do you think he is uncomfortable in his new job?
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I don’t know. Perhaps.
A lot of folks have served in multiple administrations, with, I would guess, dissimilar degrees of comfort.
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As a general principle, Steven, people don’t seek or accept jobs they don’t want. If you have other information, feel free to share it
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Each of us here has scads of experience acceding to requests for assistance with variable levels of comfort and enthusiasm, yes?
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Stephen,
I don’t know about you but I have never accepted a job I did t want. I have gone to events I wish I hadn’t. I have gone to restaurants I wish I had skipped. But a full time job that I accepted reluctantly? Never.
Anyone I have lost track of your point
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If Botel is interested in standards and accountability, he’s going to have a tough time fitting in to Betsy DeVos’ vision–which, at least in Michigan, consisted primarily of donating large amounts of money to make sure that any legislation involving accountability measures that would impact charter, private, and religious schools were defeated.
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No worries. Obama only supported standards (Common Core) and “accountability” (tests and VAM) for “ordinary” public schools. Charter schools were pretty much left to state control which effectively meant no control.
So Botel will find the environment very familiar and congenial.
“School Accountability”
We’ll hold them to account
Except for charter schools
Who pay the right amount
To circumvent the rules
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“A seamless Transition”
A seamless transition
To Trump from Obama
An ed disposition
With TFA drama
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The V.P. of Ed. Policy at the Center for American Progress (Obama and Clinton campaigns) was formerly the V.P. of Ed. Policy at TFA.
The CEO of the Podesto Group (John was Hillary’s campaign manager) was a former Jeb Bush deputy campaign manager.
However, your poem is more concise and makes the connections more memorable.
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Linda–I agree w/your take on SomeDAM’s “A Seamless Transition.”
SomeDAM–you should be an official Policy/Legislative Interpreter (I deem you thus!) Your entertaining, brilliant & easily read poems could cut to the chase–for everyone–faster than the speed of light!
No more having to read pages of legislation w/(not so) cleverly hidden agenda–Super SomeDAM can help you read/digest any tome in the blink of an eye! I, for one, am sick of our state legislators here, in ILL-Annoy, passing 300-page bills, which they were only sent the night before the vote (& who–even a literature Einstein–can closely read & determine the meaning of a proposed bill & all of its ramifications on We, the People? NO ONE!!!)
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“Legal Obfuscation”
If bills were clearly written
The public would object
So meaning’s nearly hidden
So others can collect
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It’s not a duopoly. It’s a triad of Bill Gates, the Democratic Party and, the Republican Party.
A post, at the Conservative Leaders for Education site, had a list of recommended candidates for Trump’s Secretary of Ed. It included, a former Gates Education Consultant, PARCC’s Hanna Skandera, Dick DeVos’ wife …
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This is obviously off-topic but it’s something I’ve been meaning to mention. In about half your posts, you use commas very heavily and with strange placement. For example, the comma you insert after the words “It included,” in the last sentence of this comment. But in the rest of your posts, your comma usage is judicious and not strange. What gives?
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Linda,
Do, tell, us.
Based on FLERP’s Deep, Comma, Analysis (TM) are, you, actually, more than one, person?
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I say no more commas. Let the reader catch his own breath.
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“Where would we be without commas?”
There wouldn’t be comman sense
Without the humble comma
And sentence would be dense
Without the comma drama
The comma is the mark
Between the this and that
A candle in the dark
The whiskers of a cat
If commas weren’t there
The reader would be lost
We’d have to stare and stare
If commas all were tossed
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Unless we still had lineation.
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Well, Flerp, you certainly give me pause.
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Poet,,,,,,,,comma drama queen- it has a nice ring.
Flerp,,,,,,,,,,,,,Thanks for noting and taking the time to comment on a misplaced comma or as I was corrected while in school in Boston a commer. (The comma fit in the first writing but not the corrected version. But you’re right I use too many commas reflecting my breathlessness at anticipation of notice.) Teens don’t use punctuation in texts and posts. I appreciate your youthfulness.
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To the contrary, I’m a great fan of well-placed commas.
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“Comman Cause”
The comma is a cause
A comman cause for pause
But comma has no claws
So pause is just because
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Flerp,,,,,,,and fan of small print?
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Gates Foundation is an equal apartyunity employer.
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Gates is a bad person. He’s just a rich brat lining his pockets at the expense of other people’s children. Gates needs to JUST GO AWAY, forever! He purchased his operating system when people shared freely then he locked up the market. Gates’ father is a lawyer.
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Gates’ father, mother and grandfather are/were lawyers. His grandfather’s law firm in Seattle had an interesting demise.
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Good golly….what hell we have in my state of MD! Smarick, Finn, Pondiscio, Botel. Guess it’s the close proximity to the DC elite crowd.
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He’ll fit right in. He went to a meeting of PTA advocates for public schools and promoted….private schools:
“A senior presidential aide said Wednesday that American families should have various school options for their children, including private schools.
Jason Botel, Donald Trump’s education adviser, told a National PTA conference that some children may not thrive in traditional public or charter schools and should have an opportunity to attend private schools.
“We need an education landscape that offers high quality options to all students and parents,” Botel told the conference.
Botel, who has worked in both traditional public and charter schools, told the story of some of his students who were only able to succeed academically after going to private schools. “We are committed to ensuring that students and parents of all backgrounds for whom public school may not be the best option have access to high quality private schools,” he added.”
You literally cannot pay these people to work for public schools. We ARE paying them and they STILL spend all their time promoting vouchers.
They can’t even focus on public schools AT A MEETING of public school advocates.
God forbid anyone in DC should waste any time on the schools 90% of kids attend, right? Let’s spend the next 4 years focusing exclusively on their privatization plan rather than the public schools where children go every day.
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/trumps-education-adviser-promotes-private-schools/
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This is an outrageous request I know but since the Number One and Number Two at the US Department of Education show very little interest in the unfashionable ‘public sector schools” maybe we could diversify a little and hire one adult with some interest in or enthusiasm for existing public schools?
Out of 500-some members of Congress and 4200 employees you’d think they could spare ONE.
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DeVos has a private and exclusive meeting with Eva Moskowitz.
Gosh- I wonder what a public school superintendent has to do to merit that kind of attention.
Educate, oh, 90% of kids in the United States? Would that be enough to rate this kind of special treatment?
It’s just a crock that these people are “agnostics”. Read their schedules, their speeches, look at their proposed budgets. They’re about as “agnostic” as a priest.
Public schools are an afterthought. A barrier to be gotten around and “wound down” while they realize their vision of privatized systems. Too bad no one notified the 90% of kids and parents who are still IN the schools. They’re the real losers here.
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“”The importance of Public Schools”
The public school is key
But only for the funds
Distributed for free
With vouchers by the tons
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So, will this person be the political commissar and report back to Trump when any civil service employee in the Dept. of Ed. dares to voice support for public education?
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“Botel worked for Maryland CAN, which exists to encourage privatization via charter schools. After he left Governor McCrory’s office, he worked at TFA’s Leadership for Educational Excellence, which trains ex-TFA to run for office. Acquaintances believe that his appointment suggests a renewed emphasis on standards, testing, and accountability.”
I think that he is accepting the job as a career move and as plant who will try to restore, for public schools only, attention to “high standards,” testing, accountability in ESSA. He seems to be a well qualified Gates operative, now working for Trump instead of Obama.
The timing is interesting because Bellwether Education Partners (friend of all things charter) and the Collaborative For Student Success (promoting the Common Core) are gearing up for an independent review of state plans for ESSA. The criteria that are of their own making and well beyond those DeVos will ask for in USDE’s official reviews.
I think that Botel will be working as an insider promoting much of the same agenda as in the Obama administration, promoting TFA, the Common Core, testings etc…but only for public schools.
I am doing a close look at the reviewers enlisted for the ratings of state plans by Bellwether Education Partners and the Collaborative For Student Success. Many have ties to TFA and the managers of the Common Core project. More on that to come.
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Thanks for all of the time-consuming research.
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“Puppet Master Gates”
Master of puppets
Behind the curtain
Casts Reformuppets
That’s for certain
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