The U.S. Department of Education recently announced that a key policy post was given to a person who previously worked for the Walton Family Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation. She came through Leadership for Educational Equity, which is TFA’s political training program. Vouchers for babies?
Meet the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education’s New Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Programs
Hello, Early Learning Leaders!
I am excited to introduce myself. I am Annie Hsiao, and I have joined the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) as the deputy assistant secretary for policy and programs. In this role I will provide leadership for OESE’s discretionary grants, including the early learning work and ED’s collaboration with the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to administer the new Preschool Development Grants — Birth through Five program.
Most recently, I was the senior advisor to the acting assistant attorney general of the Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice. In that position, I advised on policy, strategy, and programs in the division charged with awarding all of the agency’s grants, promoting crime reduction, and supporting victims of crime; as well as with public safety, rule of law, and juvenile justice reform. Prior to that, I was the director of strategic partnerships at Leadership for Educational Equity, a program manager at the Charles Koch Foundation, and a program officer at the Walton Family Foundation. I also served as the director of education policy at the American Action Forum, and, with an appointment from the George W. Bush administration, as the director of government and community relations at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
I am originally from California, and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and Asian American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a master’s degree in education policy from Harvard University.
OESE and the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) look forward to continuing their partnership to promote positive learning experiences for our youngest learners!
During this busy time of the year, we hope you take time to check out some of the resources we are highlighting this month, including exciting work from the Early Learning Research network and a great opportunity from our colleagues at HHS for individuals interested in promoting developmental screenings to become an Act Early Ambassador.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“I was the director of strategic partnerships at Leadership for Educational Equity, a program manager at the Charles Koch Foundation, and a program officer at the Walton Family Foundation.
I am originally from California, and earned… a master’s degree in education policy from Harvard University.”
……….
She never learned much. What does a ‘master in education policy from Harvard’ mean? Follow the big money and leave children in the dust? She believes TFA political training will teach one to actually accomplishing something meaningful?
Here is another ‘intelligent’ person who knows nothing after years of training. Who digs up these people?
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they have a network and they take care of one another
being a Reformer means you will always have a good job
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“being a Reformer means you will always have a good job”
Truer words were never spoken.
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Florida already has privatized pre-K. The state will pay a small fixed amount to a preschool serving four year olds. As far as I know, there is little to no oversight of the program. The state used to have 76% of students determined to be ready for kindergarten, and now the kindergarten readiness is about 64%. Oh, the wonders of privatization! Nothing stops the state from continuing to defy logic. https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-florida-pre-k-scores-funding-scott-maxwell-20180712-story.html
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When do the TFA’ers at the Gates-funded Center for American Progress plan to applaud Betsy’s choice of a former manager from Koch’s villainthropy to steer education policy?
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AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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exactly understood
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My thoughts exactly
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I would encourage people to look at the Walton educational foundation’s online promotional efforts:
“Director of the Walton Family Foundation K-12 Program”
Is EXCLUSIVELY devoted to promoting charter schools and vouchers. The promotions are 100% positive. ONLY charter and voucher success stories are highlighted.
This isn’t an “agnostic” or “scientific” organization. It is an organization devoted to promoting and marketing two types of schools, and public schools are completely excluded.
So why can’t we have advocates for PUBLIC schools?
I’m not clear on why it’s ok to have a huge group of politicians and paid professionals promoting charter schools and vouchers yet anyone advocating on behalf of public schools is barred as somehow “political”.
Is there some rational explanation for this? We have 1. charter and voucher proponents (allowed) and then 2. “agnostics” who (supposedly, but not really) advocate on behalf of all schools (allowed) but public school advocates are disallowed.
What has happened is public schools don’t have any passionate or committed or effective advocates in government, which shouldn’t surprise anyone- this framing ensured that would happen.
Right now in Ohio ed reform groups are lobbying for more money for charter schools. They’re not doing any work at all on funding for public schools. Why can’t public schools have the same?
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So, people have children only to turn them over to the rich to educate? BAD IDEA.
Maybe the rich should “RENT WOMBS” for their profits. Oh wait … the rich will just use petri dishes, then make wombs to grow slaves to serve them. As crazy as this sounds, I put nothing pass these yahoos.
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2.7 mil. school children have incarcerated parents. The Koch’s ALEC, i.e. rich people, positioned the U.S. as the most imprisoned population in the world.
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Here’s a press release disguised as “information” put out by an ed reform group.
It begins like this:
“Education reform group The Mind Trust has spent more than a decade pushing dramatic changes in the way schools in Indianapolis can operate—changes that have largely come to pass.
Charter schools have flourished in the city and are operating within the Indianapolis Public Schools district as partners, not competitors”
Read on. You will not find a word about Indianapolis public schools. Not only are they not “partners”, Indianapolis public schools do not even appear to exist in this city, if all one reads are ed reform press releases.
Imagine you’re the parent of a child who attends one of the public schools The Mind Trust has NOT taken over and privatized. You have no representation or advocates among this group of people paid by a private org who run your schools.
Here’s how you’re described and then dismissed:
“That’s most recently evidenced by the fact that two incumbent IPS school board members who embraced the district’s partnership with charter schools—Mary Ann Sullivan and Dorene Rodriguez Hoops—were ousted in the 2018 municipal election. Voters elected Susan Collins and Taria Slack, who have both stated opposition to the district’s direction.
After the election, The IPS Community Coalition—which supports traditional public schools—put out a statement celebrating election wins that criticized The Mind Trust as a “corporate reform institute.” The coalition said voters sent “a clear message that the community is fed up with corporate reform.”
However, Brown said most Mind Trust opposition comes from “families that have been able to leverage their privilege to get what they want,” he said.
“When we hear criticism of the reform happening in IPS, more times than not, [it’s] coming from white, wealthier families who are OK with the current status quo.”
Advocating on behalf of a public school is disallowed. However, advocating exclusively on behalf of charter schools is not only allowed, it’s portrayed as the ONLY valid advocacy.
I can predict the future, based on the ridiculous and biased Rules of Advocacy ed reformers have set up. Public schools will get the short end of this deal. In fact, they’re sending a VERY strong message to public school parents that if they want support and investment, they best withdraw from their public school and enroll in the schools The Mind Trust promotes. This isn’t “markets”. It’s marketing and it specifically excludes the public schools ed reformers oppose, ideologically.
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None of what is proposed is based on research or evidence. It is all hype, spin and marketing from billionaires and corporations.
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Why is The Mind Trust, which supports exclusively charter and charterized schools, encouraged and lavishly funded and endlessly promoted, yet the The IPS Community Coalition—which supports traditional public schools, is dismissed as invalid?
As a public school parent I’m supposed to accept that people who take jobs promoting charter schools will represent my interests?
Why? They don’t even represent my interests in their own press releases. They not only don’t advocate for public schools in Indianapolis, unless they’re governed in a way that comports with ed reform ideological beliefs (charter or charterized), they smear public school advocates.
They’re lousy advocates for kids in existing public schools. Given that, I can’t even find my own? I’m barred from having any at all?
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Read this, then vomited in my mouth a little bit.
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Of course the Koch’s –
(1) The GOP has lots of reprehensible politicians, for example, Rep. Steve King who was a long-time ALEC member and, ALEC’s Washington State Chair, Matt Shea. Shea was referred to the FBI for his manifesto which the county sheriff described as “consistent with the …Aryan Nations… movement….”
(2) ALEC’s after-Janus Toolkit has a plan to bankrupt unions.
(Both of the above were reported today by the Center for Media and Democracy.)
The Koch’s deserve more harm than a 90% tax rate but, it’s a starting point.
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This is off topic but something that needs to be addressed. When are politicians going to realize that doing this to school children is NOT Making America Great Again. It is just plain sickening that this abuse is taking place in our school system. DeVos, what are you doing about it? HA.
……
Lead contamination means Detroit students have gone 6 months without access to water fountains
Ongoing heavy metal worries in Detroit schools highlight the need for infrastructure overhaul.
NEXUS MEDIA
FEB 8, 2019, 8:00 AM
…For the last six months, the nearly 50,000 students enrolled in Detroit Public Schools (DPS) have not been able to use the drinking fountains.
In August, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti tested the water quality at 86 DPS schools. There is no law requiring schools to test their water, but Vitti had good cause for concern. At 57 of the schools tested, results showed elevated levels of lead and copper. Vitti ordered all drinking water to be shut off at every school in the district.
Lead is rarely found naturally in lakes, rivers, or wells. It tends to enter drinking water through the corrosion of aging pipes, solder, and faucets. Copper may enter into drinking water either by directly contaminating well water or through the corrosion of copper pipes. The presence of both lead and copper in drinking water at DPS schools is the result of corrosion.
“It’s all about the infrastructure. In DPS schools, they didn’t take care of the infrastructure. They didn’t do what they were supposed to do,” said a Detroit Water and Sewer company employee who wished to remain anonymous. “They have not put money into keeping up the pipes.”…
https://thinkprogress.org/michigan-detroit-students-lead-water-fountains-are-health-hazards-8017d2cdcc93/
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