Can anyone spell “conflict of interest”? Has anyone at the Department of Education ever heard the term?
Betsy Devos just selected the CEO of a corporation collecting student loans to police the collection of student loans.
The strange thing is that the Education Department forgot to mention this interesting fact when his appointment was announced, and it was removed from his resume.
Whose side will he be on–the industry or the students?
When the Trump administration announced its pick to run the $1.3 trillion federal student loan system on Tuesday, there was one notable thing about the candidate that wasn’t mentioned in the press release: he’s the CEO of a private student loan company.
The Education Department’s statement described A. Wayne Johnson as the “Founder, Chairman and former CEO” of a payments technology company called First Performance Corporation. It noted his Ph.D. in education leadership, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, citing his dissertation, said he “actually wrote the book on student loan debt.”
But what wasn’t noted was Johnson is currently the CEO of Reunion Student Loan Services, a detail confirmed by a company representative reached by phone on Tuesday afternoon. Reunion originates and services private student loans, and offers refinancing and consolidation for existing loans.
The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
I suppose this is another rebuke to the writer of the strange article in the New York Times who claimed that DeVos was making “surprising” appointments of people who are not as far right as she is. One alleged surprise was that she chose a gay woman to lead the Office of Civil Rights, which isn’t so surprising when you realize, that Candace Jackson may be gay but she opposes affirmative action and feminism, like DeVos and is content to see OCR reduce its civil rights activism. The other “surprise” choice was Jason Botell, who ran a KIPP charter school and advised Trump on education during the campaign. Why is running a charter school somehow a surprising choice for a charter zealot like DeVos. Now she has chosen an industry insider to police the industry. Is that also a surprise to the New York Times?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“. . . who claimed that DeVos was making “surprising” appointments of people who are not as far right as she is.”
It is a political impossibility to get any further right than the xxxtian fundie dominionist DeVos!
Mr. Swacker, you make a solid point.
Diane This just in also, from EdWeek:
Black Caucus Dumps Trump Meeting, Says DeVos Won’t Protect Civil Rights
By Andrew Ujifusa on June 22, 2017 8:01 AM
“The Congressional Black Caucus has decided not to keep talks going with President Donald Trump, and issues like school diversity and civil rights are part of the reason why.
“In a Wednesday letter to the president, the 49-member caucus said it was declining the Trump administration’s offer to meet with the president again—caucus leaders huddled with Trump at the White House in March. The letter points to a number of areas where the Trump administration ignored the group’s input, and says that the president’s proposed budget for fiscal 2018 would ‘devastate’ the communities represented by the CBC.
“Secretary [of Education…” (more)
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2017/06/black_caucus_dumps_trump_civil_rights_devos_differences.html?cmp=soceml-twfdbltz-ewnow
Good to see that the Congressional Black Caucus knows that Trump and his cronies do not care.
Now let’s hope that the caucus can translate their objections into political action in their home communities.
Diane This just in from EdWeek Update: Betsy DeVos Updates Plan for Cutting Education Regulations
Part of the article is below, then the link:
ALL QUOTED BELOW:
Back in February, President Donald Trump asked U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—and the rest of the cabinet—to toss out regulations and guidance that was either “burdensome” or expensive for school districts, states, and colleges to implement. The idea was to get rid of regulations that are redundant, “inhibiting job creation,” or outdated.
So how is that going? DeVos and company issued a 66-page progress report on their efforts Thursday, saying that her department was looking at 150 regulations—impacting everything from Title IX to student privacy—and 1,677 pieces of policy guidance, impacting the Every Student Succeeds Act and other key laws. You can check out a long, long list of regulations and guidance that the department is looking at, starting on page 14 of the report.
The report doesn’t mention any new regulations that headed for the trashcan, although it does note that the Trump administration has already hit the pause button on Obama-era regulations that impact for-profit colleges.
And the report gives a little bit of a behind-the-scenes look at how, exactly, the department is going through this regulatory review and potential purge.
For instance, on page 12 of the report, you can find a list of the career staffers and political appointees who are on the “regulatory reform task force.” It’s lead by Robert Eitel, a senior counselor to the secretary, as well as Elizabeth McFadden, the deputy general counsel for ethics, regulatory services. And it includes Jason Botel, the acting assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education; Ebony Lee, the deputy chief of staff for policy; Jim Manning, the acting undersecretary for education, and a host of others.
And the agency says it will be reaching out to advocacy groups for their feedback, including the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Governors Association, and groups representing district and tribal leaders. The department has already asked the education community for its ideas of regulations and guidance to scrap, in a federal register notice published Wednesday.
All of these announcements on slimming down the department’s regulatory role may come at a bit of an awkward time for DeVos & Company. END QUOTED MATERIAL
MORE on LINK
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2017/06/betsy_devos_regulations_tossed.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2-RM
C K, ,
This rush to deregulate fits with DeVos’ eagerness to unleash predatory for-profit colleges and to back away from civil rights enforcement
Diane I’m convinced that (1) deregulation and (2) the attempt to move power from US Government to the States have the same motivation–to make it easier for oligarchs, corporate dark money, and religious zealots to gain and abuse power. It’s easier at the State level. ALEC proved that to us when they began to write legislation, copy it, and send it to the Republicans in the State legislatures. We really are teetering on the edge.