Peter Greene watches with horror as Betsy DeVos turns into Arne Duncan, writing regulations when Congress doesn’t give her the legal authority she wants.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/06/betsy-devos-becomes-arne-duncan.html?spref=tw&m=1
“So here’s the story. A Secretary of Education becomes frustrated with Congress because the august body of legislators can’t get its act together to reauthorize/rewrite a major piece of law that governs an entire sector of education. So the frustrated secretary digs into their bag of tricks and decides, “Hey, by using my control of certain regulations, I can basically implement the rules that Congress won’t.”
“This, of course, is the Arne Duncan story. Congress wouldn’t get off its collective keister to fix up the Elementary and Secondary Education Act known, at the time, as No Child Left Behind (and several other less friendly names). So Duncan leveraged the penalties that states faced under NCLB, held some money hostage, and used his agency’s regulatory powers to legislate new rules for ESEA, an act that, ironically, united Congress in a bipartisan desire to spank Duncan and that desire, in turn, led to the reauthorized ESEA/NCLB, now known as ESSA.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The list of proposed changes is really law-making to fit DeVos and her friends agenda. Here is an example listed as a change that will influence activity at the federal, state and local levels.
Title: ●Eligibility of Faith-Based Entities and Activities
Abstract:
Various provisions of the Department’s regulations regarding the eligibility of faith-based entities to obtain grants from the Department or to participate in State-administered programs and the activities that they may perform unnecessarily restrict participation by religious entities in the Department’s grant programs by including requirements specific to such entities. The Department plans to review and to amend or rescind such regulations in order to be consistent with current law and to reduce or eliminate unnecessary burdens and restrictions on religious entities and activities.
I wonder what the “unnecessary burdens and restrictions are.” I fear that this means religious indoctrinations with federal funds will be permitted.
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Laura, the unnecessary burden might be complying with anti-discrimination law in accepting students and hiring faculty.
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“unnecessary burdens and restrictions” are in Betsy’s way to bring her god’s kingdom to/on earth. She’s an xtian fundie who wrongly believes the USA to be an xtian nation. In her little mind she will be forever blessed if she can help make this country follow xtian sharia law.
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I suspected that Betsy DeVos was an alien shapeshifter. Not an illegal or legal alien but an alien from another universe. She probably was born on an eyeball planet.
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The DeVosians
Betsy DeVos
From Planet of Floss
Plaque should beware
Cuz Betsy’s from there
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Two things are interesting here. One, that education policy under the Obama administration, under Arne Dun-can’t in particular, was the gateway drug for DeVos, and two, that DeVos is even more anti-qualified than Dun-can’t was and the process by which she was chosen as a candidate for Sec. of Ed. was even more corrupt than the farce that gave us Dun-can’t.
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I blame DeVos for a lot but this is the fault of Congress. They simply abdicate their duties- then they whine and complain that the executive branch has too much power.
Guess who gave it to them? Members of Congress who refuse to do their jobs.
This is about power. If one branch gives it up voluntarily (like Congress does, regularly) another branch will pick it up.
Congress is broken, and they’re broken because they’re corrupt. That predates Trump. All they do is serve donors. They’ve made THEMSELVES irrelevant.
At this point I’d prefer to get rid of the Dept of Education. It’s turned into a political tool of ed reformers – one NARROW view- and Congress refuses to provide any guidance or oversight.
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I see ESSA as a bipartisan effort to kick the thorny problems of education accountability downstairs to the States who will inevitably use the cheapest and most worthless means of “measuring” student success: letter grades based on standardized tests. By doing this they will diminish the USDOE’s ability to intervene in even thornier issues like discipline, racial and economic inequality, and regulating profiteers.
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