Trump forgot to mention education.
No wonder. He promised during the campaign to get rid of Common Core. He didn’t. it is as strong as ever. He forgot that promise, and Betsy must hide her past as a supporter of Common Core.
He didn’t brag about getting $20 Billion for School Choice, as promised, because he didn’t.
He didn’t brag about removing protections for kids with disabilities, transgender students, rape victims, or students defrauded by for-profits like Trump University.
Betsy DeVos can’t appear before any audience unless it is a group she funded.
Then there is the problem that he knows nothing at all about education, nor does she.
No bragging rights in this arena.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You’re right that he didn’t mention Common Core, but he didn’t forget about education. He advocated for Vocational schools which I believe are sorely needed.
Why don’t they just fund and support the vocational schools we have?
Building a whole new system of privatized vocational schools is wasteful and reckless.
my, imagine a district NOT selling off all of the woodworking/home economics/jewelry/auto mechanics (etc.) materials it already owns as those courses are eliminated in favor of adding more and more and more tested classes
Kennedy’s response was from a public regional technical high school.
We still have vocational schools!
Thank you, Diane.
I was struck by the fact that Betsy was all dressed up but never got her camera moment during the speech. No mention of education. No close-up of her pretty blue outfit and coiffure. Truly fretful. Nancy Pelosi got more face time reaction shots.
If a single immigrant person of color, somewhere in America, commits a crime, you can count on that becoming the lead story on Breitbart and Fox. And tonight’s State of the Disunion Address showed, yet again, that these racist news outlets are simply following the lead of their president.
Predictably, Trump’s speech was filled with anti-immigrant fear-mongering, which has always been a major tool in the kit of the a certain kind of would-be populist demagogue and rabble-rouser. You know the kind I mean. It was shameful to see this president deliver, tonight, yet again, his not-so-subtle call to Make America White Again.
And this morning on NPR, an admittedly right wing talk show host was allowed to cite a Study which claimed to have proven that illegal immigrants account for a greater amount of crime than the rest of the population. This went unchallenged, probably because the interviewer was blindsided by the citation. I have not tracked down the study, but it smacked of the days of race baiting in the south during the civil rights fights.
I’ve looked at these stats. In Texas, which has a high rate of unauthorized immigrants, the percentage of crimes done by these people is 1.8 percent. Less than two percent of the crimes.
Politifact fact check on the claim about crime by unauthorized immigrants:
http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/aug/03/antonio-villaraigosa/mostly-true-undocumented-immigrants-less-likely-co/
It’s good they admit this, now, finally:
“In the long run, this strategy was meant to “tip” a certain number of urban school systems to all-charter. These localities would get strikingly better student outcomes so that other cities would want the same, and states would facilitate charter growth via favorable policies.”
Have ed reform politicians EVER run on this? That the “strategy” was to create wholly privatized systems?
If this was indeed “the strategy” of ed reform none of their politicians ever ran on it publicly. They actively deny this and have for years.
If they want to replace public schools with privatized systems, don’t they have an obligation to voters to actually RUN on that instead of all this nonsense where they claim they support public schools? It’s really deceptive to voters to insist you support their children’s school when actually your strategy is to replace that school with a charter school.
Run on privatization if that’s your strategy. Surely people have a right to know what the plan is for “public schools”.
https://www.the74million.org/article/proposal-the-future-of-the-charter-school-movement-requires-a-new-political-strategy/
Is there a recent president who has been a “success” in education? Does a top down focus from education work?
Exactly. And I’m having a hard time remembering the last time any politician mentioned education in any positive way in any major speech. They don’t “forget” about education, they ignore it because their plans for it don’t include improving it, just privatizing it.
Probably the last President who cared at all about education was Jimmy Carter when he created USDE. Every president after him has found a way or made a loophole to divert those tax dollars away from children and into the hands of special interest groups and the free market.
Well said.
Mark,
No president has ever been good for education because they are a) uninformed b) unaware of local conditions c) are too far removed. Their answer is always to shift control to DC or to give orders.
Predictibly, CRAZY is still doing the same thing again and again and again
and expecting different results.
How many voted and thought, THIS time the politician is telling the truth…
He promised during the campaign to get rid of Common Gore.
I didn’t watch the conflate of the union redress in view of standing order 101.
“Don’t piss in the wind and expect to stay dry…”
lol
According to the fact checkers I’ve read, Trump’s boasts during the alleged state of the union address were 99-percent lies and exaggerations. In that case, it is amazing he couldn’t come up with a lie to boast about his education successes.