Like Jan Resseger, I’m old enough to remember when the U.S. Office of Education was part of the massive Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
Words matter. So do signals. We saw that when Melania Trump traveled to the Texas Border to demonstrate “compassion,” wearing a jacket that had a logo: “I really don’t care, do U?”
Jan writes here about why it is a bad message to merge Education and Labor into one cabinet department.
“Although the Trump administration cannot impose a restructure of the government without approval by Congress, one must pay attention, nonetheless, to the proposal announced yesterday and even to the meaning of the language in which the proposed restructure is framed—education defined as workforce preparation, for example, and the return of the word “welfare,’ now a pejorative in conservative political circles, to make it easier for politicians to slash funding by the federal government.
“What is being proposed lacks compassion for children. The new plan is designed by officials impervious to what is well known about healthy child development. The proposed restructure reflects the kind of heartlessness we’ve been watching as Trump administration officials callously separate babies and toddlers from their parents at the border, lock tiny, bewildered children in closed-Walmart orphanages, or send them on airplanes to social agencies or foster parents in far-off cities.”
Nancy Bailey writes on the same issue:
She asks:
Moms and Dads, when you looked into your newborn’s eyes for the first time, did you think, I wonder what job our government will steer our baby into?
A merger of the Department of Education (DOE) with the Department of Labor (DOL) is about just that.
Here’s a quote from this administration’s manual called “Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century: Reform Plan and Reorganization” (p.23-28).
The workforce development program consolidation would centralize and better coordinate Federal efforts to train the American workforce, reduce administrative costs, and make it easier for States and localities to run programs to meet the comprehensive needs of their workforce. (p.23)
Where is the word child or teen in that quote?
Chances are when you looked into your baby’s eyes, you weren’t thinking of the government at all.
No, when you marveled at the miracle of your child, your hopes were, and still are, for them, not a government that caters to corporations.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The truly insidious aspect of this restructuring attempt is how it will disproportionately affect minorities, people of color and the poor. When one talks about workforce and labor, it does not invoke the image of a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a doctor who graduated from Harvard, is married to a lawyer who graduated from the same institution and who together live in a zip code where their children will attend either a private school or elite public school (think Scarsdale NY for example). So basically, this is an attempt to create a workforce that will support the top 9.9% of Americans to continue living a life that has workers who are readily available to service their needs.
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Common Core for the common people. College and Career Ready. Words definitely matter.
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The policies of the current administration demonstrate how inadequate the response is to education in the hands of business interests. Trump appointed a biased, scheming entrepreneur with no training or background in education to lead the DOE. Without a distinctive department to represent the interests of children, they will be more likely lost in the shuffle to privatize and monetize them. As wealthy corporations and billionaires insert themselves into policies. decisions that benefit the 1% will crowd out policies that serve working people like education, entitlements and maintenance social safety nets. All decisions on education will be co-opted by those that have no intention of using public education. Middle class and poor people should support keeping a separate DOE so that they have representation among all the special interest groups. Unfettered capitalism will chew up and spit out the most vulnerable.
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Yes!
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Not a good idea to merge the two. It would be a total DISASTER. The deformers wantbtotal control for their warped agenda.
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The deformers want TOTAL CONTROL.
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Ugh, it just gets nastier and nastier. This is even worse than Grover “Norquisling’s” drowning the government in a bathtub remark. Trump and the GOP are determined to cripple and hobble the regulatory agencies so that their corporate buddies will have free rein to do as they please and acquire more wealth and power. As if Jeff Bezos and the Waltons don’t already have enough wealth. We need to vote out the GOP in November and 2020; sorry, that does mean voting for the lesser damaging candidate, a D. Or we can form the usual circular firing squads and see Trump take a 2nd term.
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Education used to be under the old Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Education split off in 1979. If the Education department merges with the Labor Dept, no one expects any serious policy changes. One thing, at least opponents of Ms. DeVos will be rid of her.
The federal government has no specific mandate to get involved in education at all.
The Dept of Education should be abolished, like Pres Ronald Reagan promised.
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my Essay Words Matter, is being written when I saw this. The NY Times did a piece today about the deluge of incendiary remarks that can sink a candidate, but since the mongrel took over this nation’s conversations, he has become a loudspeaker for incivility.
View at Medium.com
But worse, it is the lies that will undo us, because no society can make decisions based on lies. https://eand.co/the-authoritarians-rhetorical-playbook-f308fd1de21a
Every single day, from cradle to grave, the American population is subjected to a nonstop barrage of lies, omissions of truths and outrageous distortions, with the sole purpose of maintaining the nation’s allegiance to the imperialist/capitalist status quo anchored in constant war and unstoppable inequality. The American system of disinformation, evolved over more than a century, fools just about everyone with its apparent diversity of sources. After all the US has literally thousands of “news” outlets, from radio stations to tv stations, newspapers and other channels, and people reckon that this enormous quantity of media must automatically guarantee a vigorous debate of the issues at hand and the presentation of all viewpoints. They could not be more wrong. This diversity is an illusion.
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/06/19/exposure-to-mainstream-media-the-daily-insult/
The president and his movement are empowered by ugly talk
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/fighting-fire-with-water/561818/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=atlantic-weekly-newsletter&utm_content=20180601&silverid-ref=MzM0NTY0NzMyNzIyS0
Is America losing its humanity. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/opinion/trump-immigration-refugees.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_ty_20180531&nl=opinion-today&nl_art=6&nlid=50637717emc%3Dedit_ty_20180531&ref=headline&te=1
And they are coming after all of us who speak truth: The Department Of Homeland Security Plans To Compile A List Of All Bloggers, Journalists And “Social Media Influencers” http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-department-of-homeland-security-plans-to-compile-a-list-of-all-bloggers-journalists-and-social-media-influencers
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Remember OBE?
Outcomes-Based Education
Bill Spady and others – Working toward mastery of objectives and outcomes
And the outcry starting with Phyllis Schlafly to the right and farther right?
Remember all that “get government out of education”?
Shut down the Department of Education.
Don’t let the government dictate what job your kid will be forced to take.
Don’t let government teach values…
Ha. Typical hypocritical gop say whatever it takes to get elected rhetoric
Cut school to college programs (TRIO etc) and fund cte
Cut Title I funds and make “supplant” allowabl
Now that they have control of the government and they have values and practices THEY want imposed on kids (and other not taught like, uh… science)
they want – wait for it –
1) federal control of schools;
2) siphoning off money to benefit only the wealthy; and
3) merging education and labor to dictate where all the “other” kids will go to school and what they will and won’t learn for jobs.
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drones, managers and the RICH.
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This will be sold to the mainstream media and voters as a move toward more efficiency in government. Efficiency is the enemy of socially responsible business… and the enemy of most voters. After all, it is efficient to offshore jobs to save costs associated with wages and benefits. It is efficient to replace workers with robots and truck drivers with driverless vehicles and drones that deliver packages. It is efficient to avoid the costs associated with environmental regulations. It is efficient to replace defined benefit pensions with self-funded 401ks. It is efficient to provide a stipend for health insurance instead of paying taxes to assure that everyone has coverage. Oh… and it is efficient to replace democratically elected school boards with CEOs who answer to shareholders seeking profits instead of the well being of the community where their business is located.
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