Over the past decade, Michigan has become a national symbol of charter failure. As choice expanded, public school funding declined. Michigan’s NAEP scores fell from the middle of the pack to the bottom 10. Michigan is the only state where 80% of charters operate for profit. Most charters are concentrated inDetroit, which is the lowest performing urban district in The nation.
Betsy DeVos Just awarded $47 million to Michigan to open more charters.
Why does she stay Ina job when she has become a laughing stock? Because Congress gives her more than $400 million to hand out to charters.
Help Guide the Launch, Expansion & Replication of Great Charters!
The Michigan Department of Education (MDE) was recently awarded a $47 million Charter Schools Program grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The main goal of the grant is to award subgrants up to $1,250,000 to applicants that are prepared and ready to successfully launch, expand or replicate innovative and effective schools that will provide quality options for underserved populations.
To help accomplish this goal, the MDE has engaged the National Charter Schools Institute to assemble and coordinate a team of experienced and highly skilled professionals to serve on three-person application review teams.
Each reviewer will be responsible for analyzing up to four applications and calibrating their individual assessment with those of their three-person review team, so a consensus report containing constructive feedback can be provided to each applicant prior to submitting their official grant application to MDE.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As her being a laughingstock, it doesn’t get better than this:
Well Betsy, if you were to “intentionally visit an under performing school”, here is what you would find:.
The results of parental neglect and family dysfunction
The results of generational poverty, dependence, and economic hopelessness
Kids overwhelmed by food insecurity, psychological trauma, and the stress of serious life issues
Chronic absenteeism ( 20, 30, 40+ absences per year, every year)
A small handful of chronically disruptive, combative, rude, and belligerent students routinely destroying the educational opportunities of the majority
Run down facilities and limited resources, some of which have been depleted by re-distribution to charter schools or through vouchers
Many hard working teachers who have grown frustrated, weary, and disillusioned while fighting the good fight, against all odds.
Not a single supporter or defender of all that you stand for
When does Secretary DeVos go back in front of Congress? I look forward to that.
As soon as they pass a budget that prevents more shutdowns. The budget will occupy most of their time for the moment, not that they spend that much time actually working.
Thank you, drext727.
This is amazing even for ed reform:
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/02/07/cory-booker-vs-cory-booker-two-videos-to-understand-how-the-politics-of-education-are-being-reshaped-in-the-trump-era/
It’s 2 videos of Corey Booker. In one he lauds Betsy DeVos’ privatization group and in the next, a year later, he denounces DeVos.
As I have said, I don’t mind that they want to privatize public education. I do, however, think they have an ethical obligation to reveal that to voters.
Just run on privatization. It isn’t fair to tell public school students and families that politicians “support” them when ed reform politicians don’t, in fact, support them.
I understand why they do it- public school students are the vast majority of students, but that political calculation doesn’t make it right to mislead them.
scary that the guy the establishment Dem party appears to value is a man who flipflops so publicly: “It’s 2 videos of Corey Booker. In one he lauds Betsy DeVos’ privatization group and in the next, a year later, he denounces DeVos.” Booker goes wherever those with power and influence take him.
Booker is the candidate of the billionaire-funded Center for American Progress i.e. establishment Dems., more accurately known as DINO’s.
DeVos is the queen of choice, even when it makes no sense and gets poor results. Her so called choice is a false one as the schools do the choosing. She is really pushing privatization at any cost.
I have always maintained that a comprehensive public school system offers many more options for students that a one size fits all charter operated by amateurs. Peter Greene’s current post eloquently outlines the same sentiment by showing how his small rural school system produced students that were successful in many diverse fields. I saw the same results in the suburban school district in which I taught for man years. “Reform” for public education is really about narrowing choices in public schools by attempting to impose standardization on them. So called reform is about starving public schools and imposing standardized testing on them to hobble their ability to best serve students. http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/
retired teacher,
Again, you are right. Thank you.
The US Department of Education is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ed reform.
Here’s one of the public employees supposedly promoting “school choice”, but really promoting charters and vouchers and bashing public schools:
“Moreover, inflation-adjusted funding for traditional public schools has skyrocketed in the past 40 years, with no appreciable learning gains, and there is no evidence to suggest that spending even more would produce better educational outcomes.
As for student achievement, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence demonstrates that educational choice programs improve academic outcomes for those who participate in the programs. And academic performance is just one measure of student achievement. Choice programs also positively impact high school graduation rates, college enrollment, civic engagement, crime rates, and improve parental and student satisfaction.”
The whole website is like this. It’s one big marketing effort for the ideologically correct schools- private and charter schools.
I don’t think public school students, families or teachers are welcomed in their own federal government anymore. It’s 100% echo chamber.
They offer absolutely no value-add to public school students, and since public school students still make up 85% of students, that means they simply refuse to serve the vast majority of US students because they happen to attend the PUBLIC schools this exclusive little clique disdains.
I resent paying them. Walton or Gates or Broad should be picking up their salaries. They don’t work for me.
The DEFORMERS don’t care. They really want slaves who don’t question their authority…Jim Crow. I consider people like Gates to be Jim Crow-ers.
Is there some practical reason public school supporters should continue to support the existence of the US Department of Education?
Did we really need another charter/voucher cheerleader section?
If I want to read public school bashing and mindless cheerleading of charter and private schools I can go to any one of tens of privately-funded echo chamber ed reform orgs. I need to pay public employees for this?
If the government hired the right people to operate the DOE, we would see better results. Instead, the DOE is a propaganda service of privatization.
I am in Vero Beach where DeVos has a mega home in a polo gated community & Feb 12 I will be @ a University of Michigan event where I will see the Dean of Ed School and if I am lucky actually speak briefly to President Schlissel. The Ed School reached its $60 million goal and U of M multi year fund drive netted over $5 Billion. I believe the largest public university campaign ever. U of M gets very small % of its operating money from the State of Michigan but the 3 State Universities together are Michigan’s largest employer! I begged the previous Ed Dean to invite Diane years ago when it it had happened maybe the University would have developed some guilt about not speaking against privatization of the public K-`12 schools and allowing the State regional universities like Eastern Mich State to host charters right on campus. My family owned a vacation home in Michigan for 100 years and while I was at UofM, I was a reporter for the Michigan Daily and knew Trustees and the then President. Yes, I was there when Kennedy was shot and yes the Michigan Daily put out a special edition that afternoon that I and others ran around campus dropping off copies. I was Class of 1964 when Lyndon Johnson made his Great Society the topic of the commencement address. So what now in the days of DeVos.
Grand Valley State University also betrays the citizens’ trust with its charter cheerleading.
We will see if the new governor is as good as her word.
The public should really read the US Department of Ed website. They should find out what they’re paying for:
The “Homeroom” blog is instructive. Cheerleading of charter and private schools.
Guess where public schools come in? When they’re scolding our students on substance abuse or selling them cheap, garbage ed tech.
Our schools are only mentioned on three issues- substance abuse, guns, and shameless pitches to buy ed tech product.
You can see how much our schools and students are valued. They’re apparently all violent drug addicts who are useful only as bulk purchasers of product.
RELENTLESSLY negative where public school students are concerned. The idea is you’ll “flee” from your public school and attend one of the charter or private schools these folks work for.
I wonder how much of this $47,000,000 will trickle up into the pockets of DeVos’s family, friends, and cronies.
We’ll never know if they bring in some Trump or Amway accountants to cook the books.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
They just need to have money pile bonfire.
More Millions for failing charter schools so they can shut down and steal more taxpayer dollars. It happens everyday. And on another note Florida wants to have retired people at 65 pay No schools taxes. I’m for cutting taxes for retired people . They’ve been paying all their lives and even some that never had kids in the system. Give them a break and let the people using the system cover more for them using the system.
I am constantly fighting the St. Louis Post Dispatch to report education news….and I disagreed with one of the comments that came when I posted this story on the PD current affairs forum. They block me from making comments anywhere else. I complimented him on his effort, because a two sided discussion is better than the silence—education is not important to discuss at all…just stay quiet and let their persons of means take care of all things. If you can offer a rebuttal to what he said in answer—I will post it on the pd current affairs thread. by Brummer 05 Feb 2019 08:52 am
The problem with charter schools in Michigan is not the concept of charter schools, but that they’re operating in such a lousy environment. First, if you take Detroit out of the equation they’re performing very well. Second, if you look at Detroit, charter schools are struggling partly because they are overwhelmed by kids coming there to get out of the abysmal public school systems there. You can’t blame DeVos for that.
Charter schools there still outperform their district counterparts:
https://www.watchdog.org/michigan/michigan-s-charter-schools-outperforming-district-school-counterparts/article_5bb74e1e-748b-11e8-8076-c7f92e591f73.html
How much of our tax money is Betsy steering to MSU’s EPIC center or, to those associated with EPIC? Who provided original funding for EPIC.
John Arnold gave almost $2 mil. to EPIC.