I confess. I didn’t watch Betsy DeVos testify. I didn’t want to. No one pays me to blog every day, so I have some discretion in how I use my time. What I did instead, which was very taxing, was to watch preview DVDs on the PBS special “School Inc.,” because I have been invited to tape a response for Channel 13, New York City’s PBS station. It is worse than anything you anticipated in terms of distortion, inaccuracies, slander of public schools, and adulation of the free market. Maybe I should have watched DeVos.
Valerie Strauss did watch DeVos. Here is her report.
She made clear that she would not put any limits on for-profit education companies. She recommended virtual charters to an Alabama senator, although even the charter industry has called out online schools for their poor academic results.
And here is a key quote:
“She was asked repeatedly whether private schools that would be part of the administration’s proposed program to fund and study a new voucher program would be subject to federal discrimination and special education laws, and she repeatedly said, “Schools that receive federal funds must follow federal law.””
As our reader Laura Chapman pointed out in a comment, voucher funds are always defended by the assertion that the public money goes to the family, not the school. Tax credits for vouchers go to corporations who pay for vouchers. Every voucher program operates under the fiction that the public money does not go to the school.
The money is laundered through the family or third parties.
So DeVos is cleverly masking the fact that federal law will not apply to schools that receive federal funds.
It is a three-card Monte game.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DeVos can say that, Diane, because DeVos knows that there are public schools available for the students who are denied entry to private schools.
The public schools she disdains and attacks are actually absolutely essential to the private schools she prefers.
She can push these experiments because she has the luxury of a public school system she didn’t create, doesn’t support and rarely mentions backing up her “choice” system.
Public schools are the never-mentioned “default” system in all this. Ed reform takes them for granted. They’re the backstop, the entity that allows them to “innovate” without fear that there will be a set of furious parents demanding a school for their child.
She has this backward. Private schools are optional in a universal public system. The essential schools are public schools. Ed reform just assumes public schools will be around in the background, mostly ignored by the Best and Brightest, because none of these schemes would be possible without them.
I read one ed reformer who reluctantly admitted public schools might still have to exist, but only for “new” parents who aren’t plugged in enough to navigate the “choice” system. He referred to 90% of the schools in the country as a “default”. THAT’S how little they value existing public schools.
LikeLike
Public schools will exist for the poorest and neediest students who will not gain entry into charter and private schools.
LikeLike
Why do you think this? In WashDC, there is a terrific program, which assists the poorest/neediest children, whose parents have decided to seek educational opportunities outside of the public education system.
see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._Opportunity_Scholarship_Program
LikeLike
Charles,
The latest evaluation of that D.C. voucher program showed that it had negative effects. If the children had remained in DC public schools, they would have gotten a better education.
LikeLike
It’s funny because everyone used to understand this. Why can cities have magnet public schools? Because cities have public schools that admit all students! The open enrollment public schools make the magnet schools possible! Public schools aren’t LESS valuable than magnet schools. They’re MORE valuable because one is essential and the other is not.
It’s only with the advent of ed reform that the essential schools became the schools all these “innovators” can dismiss as useless. It’s nuts.
I listened to part of the hearing and the senators have all adopted this framing. They were up there telling DeVos that she can’t siphon off students from rural schools because rural schools can’t take the hit. Somehow the essential schools have become an after-thought. They don’t even bother asking for improvements for public schools. They are defending the EXISTENCE of public schools. That’s how far they have retreated.
LikeLike
Some cities offer selective public magnet schools. I attended one long before the concept of a magnet school in Philadelphia. New York City has some exceptional public magnet schools.
My son attended a selective career academy that accepts students from any school in the county. Selective magnet schools often work with sending public schools to limit the number of students from any one district so the loss of some students will not adversely impact the sending public school. In the case of my son’s school, the magnet school was also a cooperative service provider for a host of special services such as special and vocational education. In any case, every attempt is made to select a balance students from around the county so as to not harm any sending public school district. I was on the parent board of his magnet school. Unlike charters the public districts have a limited number of slots in the magnet school, and they have control over the number of students that will be leaving for the selective magnet.
LikeLike
“Selective magnet schools often work with sending public schools to limit the number of students from any one district so the loss of some students will not adversely impact the sending public school”
That right there is the recognition that the sending public school is essential and the magnet school can’t operate at the expense of the sending public school. Can’t. Cannot. Because that is not fair to the children in the sending school.
That’s the “public” part of public schools. A recognition of how the pieces of the system intersect. That’s the push-pull, the hard part. It would be easy if “the money followed the child” and it all sorted itself magically out but that ain’t gonna happen.
DeVos won’t admit that. She tells people “choice” is an unalloyed good, that all schools will benefit. That’s not true. It’s a fantasy. It’s wrong of her to make this guarantee. It’s deceptive.
LikeLike
If Betsy DeVos had designed the magnet system she would insist the sending school would stay exactly the same and both schools would magically become “better”. In fact, she would shut down any discussion of the sending school’s concerns by smearing them as “self interested” and wave away any questions.
This isn’t “agnostic”. It’s prioritizing one set of schools over another.
LikeLike
I watched DeVos’ testimony. She was very guarded about what she said. She evaded questions and came across as very untrustworthy.
LikeLike
OY!
LikeLike
— ANATOMY OF A QUESTION DUCKING —
Here’s one of those infuriating non-answers that Devos gave the Senate subcommittee:
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
( FOR FUTURE REFERENCE:
… whenever Devos says to a Senator …
“Thank you for that question. Senator (NAME) … ”
… that is an indication, or — if her habit or pattern holds — is a surefire guarantee that what comes next out of Devos’ mouth will be a TOTAL avoidance of that particular question, with a simultaneous and manipulative attempt to change the subject to a topic that is totally irrelevant to the question, but advantageous for Devos to discuss.
It’s almost as maddening to watch this shabby trick of Devos, as it must be for the Senator trying to get a straight freakin’ answer out of her.)
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Here’s Senator Murphy asking about something pretty reasonable and straightforward.
He wants to know whether or not there will be, under Devos’ leadership, any transparency required on the part of for-profit schools or for-profit chains, and whether there will be any safeguards against for-profit CEO’s getting paid excessive multi-million-dollar salaries — i.e. salary caps.
In her response — or rather non-response — Devos says that, in her view, Senator Murphy should instead frame such a question about “what students are achieving” at any such school where a CEO pulls in a million-dollar salary.
In other words, Devos is trying to get Senator Murphy to ask a different question, or provide herself with an opening to answer a different question, one which she prefers to answer — and lead the dialogue away from the import of Murphy’s original], and more challenging question being asked of Devos. In this manner, Devos has left behind the more challenging and original question — again, the one that is actually being asked of her by Senator Murphy — in the dust of her manipulative obfuscation.
Hey Betsy! HE WASN’T ASKING ABOUT “what students are achieving”. If Senator Murphy,had wanted you to talk about “what students are achieving” he would have freakin’ asked about that!
However, she implicitly admits that, in her “free-market” view, as long as “students are achieving,” the for-profit, voucher-funded charter school CEO’s and voucher-funded private school CEO’s are fully entitled to whatever ridiculously excessive multi-million-dollar salaries that they can manage to pay themselves … and do so with money that originates from taxpayers’ dollars, whether the taxpayers approve of such salaries or not (HINT: taxpayers wouldn’t approve.)
Though she never directly gives such an answer, one can reasonably infer that.
(Go to 01:31:50 , then watch the torturous next few minutes)
(Go to 01:31:50 , then watch the torturous next few minutes)
LikeLike
“… whenever Devos says to a Senator …
“Thank you for that question. Senator (NAME) … ”
… that is an indication, or — if her habit or pattern holds — is a surefire guarantee that what comes next out of Devos’ mouth will be a TOTAL avoidance of that particular question, with a simultaneous and manipulative attempt to change the subject to a topic that is totally irrelevant to the question, but advantageous for Devos to discuss.”
Exactly. I wonder if there is a Vegas line on an over under for how many times that DeVos says that “Thank you. . . ” line?
LikeLike
I tried to watch that hearing. Maybe I’ll try again today. But watching and listening to DeVos ramble on disseminating load of crap after load of crap, along with some senators fawning all over her is more than I can take.
LikeLike
So the WaPo has decided that I can either subscribe or turn off the ad blocker. Guess I won’t be clicking on them anymore.
LikeLike
“Covfefe” (noun): what comes out of the mouth of Betsy DeVos.
In other words, nonsense.
LikeLike
US News and Reports had an article that suggested that DeVos was outside the mainstream of Republican thought because she suggested that private schools who are public money need to follow federal law. I am not sure what they meant. No one suggested here that she said that.
LikeLike
Here’s an article from the Left Side about deVos and historic segregation academies, where taxpayers pay so white polar bear parents can Choose to keep their children away from brown grizzlies:
https://www.laprogressive.com/betsy-devos-segregated-schools/
LikeLike