Betsy DeVos is not shy about revealing her priorities. She must cut positions to downsize the Department, making way for tax cuts for the 1%.
Look where the buyouts are concentrated:
CIVIL RIGHTS OFFICE COULD TAKE BIGGEST HIT IN ED BUYOUTS: The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights could lose 45 employees because of early separation offers – a big hit to an office that many argue is understaffed to handle the number of complaints it receives each year. In fiscal 2017, the office was funded to employ 569 staff members, according to the department’s budget request from earlier this year.
– It would be the most of any division within the agency, according to a document obtained by POLITICO from a congressional office. Of the 255 voluntary offers made Nov. 1 to employees to separate or retire early, 45 people work in the civil rights office, the document says. The Trump administration’s budget proposal had called for cutting 46 positions from the office, which the administration said it would do through attrition.
– The office receives 10,000 complaints of discrimination annually, but has half of the staff it had in 1980, when it received fewer than 3,500 complaints, according to Education Department figures. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the HELP Committee, said in a statement Thursday she was “appalled” that Secretary Betsy DeVos “would use a lack of staffing and resources as an excuse to roll back civil rights investigations and protections, and then turn around and attempt to shrink these critical offices … I will continue to work to give the Department the resources it needs to better aid students and families, and I strongly urge Secretary DeVos to stop putting her ideological agenda above students and work with us.”
– An Education Department spokeswoman noted in a statement that the offers are voluntary and approved by the federal Office of Personnel Management. “Keep in mind, these positions can be backfilled as the workload demands,” said the spokeswoman, Liz Hill.

Not surprising. The GOP has been clamoring for the elimination of the Department of Ed for years. Pretty soon all that will be left will be a rump staff that can be folded into the Department of Defense, presumably, with the sole purpose of gathering data on citizens who could be useful members of the armed forces.
LikeLike
Meanwhile, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/opinion/trump-trophy-elephants.html
LikeLike
FLERP,
I need your advice. I used to copy links from the New York Times, but it no longer allows it. Instead of a link, I get a headline. How did you get the link for the editorial on elephants?
LikeLike
I just copied the url and pasted it in. Sometimes there are a lot of extraneous after the “.html” portion of the url, and I delete those, but I don’t know if that would solve your issue.
LikeLike
I can’t get an URL, whether I press “copy” or “tweet,” only the story title appears. I am working on an iPad, will try my cell or computer.
Could you send me the URL FOR timothy Egan’s opinion piece that is now online?
LikeLike
interesting, that time it pasted the image and headline in.
LikeLike
That’s what I get every time
LikeLike
My theory is that if you paste only the URL in, it will default to the image-plus-headline. But if you include other text in the post, the URL is rendered as text. Only Yogi knows for sure.
LikeLike
FLERP,
CELL gets the URL, iPad does not. Curious.
LikeLike
What I’m deducing is that if my comment has some text in addition to the url (e.g., the text “Here’s another shot, . . . “), then the url will paste and show up as just a url. But if I post only the url, it shows up as a headline and thumbnail image. Not sure if that’s relevant for your issue, but go figure.
LikeLike
Amazing. I no longer get the URL.
LikeLike
As Yogi Berra said, computers are fast but they take more time.
LikeLike
As often, Yogi was right. Though I wonder if he ever saw a computer or said that!
LikeLike
Thank you
LikeLike
I’ve been saying for years that part of Reform is rolling back PL 94-142 that guaranteed a free appropriate education to students with disabilities. Reformers are using back-door means to squash the rights of these students. It is a disgrace that these cuts are being proposed and there is not greater outrage. Many students with disabilities have to file an OCR complaint to receive the appropriate services they need to access their educational environments.
LikeLike
I need to puke now.
LikeLike
Too many occasions for that, Yvonne. It’s not healthy for ya! 🙂
LikeLike
Unfortunately, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is anything but a hero for teachers. She is part of the Endless Testing Regime and has some other screwy ideas that allow Washington to have a much heavier hand in local school districts that it should.
LikeLike