Mercedes Schneider listened to Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos deride what they call “America’s failing government schools.”
She writes that these two deep thinkers put the hyphen in the wrong place. To understand what has happened over the past two decades, you must realize that the schools have been victimized by failing-government policies, by policies based on flawed theories and uninformed hunches, starting with a “Texas miracle” that never happened and followed by federal mandates that were unrealistic and just plain dumb.
Who failed? Not the schools. The politicians.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That was a prepared speech. Have to love that the whole Trump team went out of their way to bash every public school and public school student in the country.
It wasn’t even necessary! They all spend 24/7 promoting the superiority of private schools. This would just be another day of the Trump Administration promoting private school vouchers.
They could have just left our schools out of it completely, but instead the whole group of adults who wrote that speech went out of their way to smear them.
With the Secretary of the US Department of Education enthusiastically backing every word.
As a public school parent, I have a question. Do I have a duty to welcome the US Department of Education into my son’s school if they all believe the school and every student in the the school is “failing”? Why do I want these folks around him? So they can undermine the work his teachers and parents do? Why am I paying these people for this?
I have a suggestion for promoters of private schools- you probably don’t want Donald Trump as the face of the (allegedly) superior academic and moral values you’re supposedly instilling.
Not sure he’s the best advertisement for America’s most expensive private schools, particularly if the pitch includes “character education”. The man can’t open his mouth without lying. Unlike ed reformers, however, I don’t blame his private schools for his complete lack of character- I think that’s his fault.
Donald Trump, Serial Sexual Predator, Pathological Liar, White Supremacist, Environmental Vandal, and Televangelist
I put up Mercedes’ blog at OEN ( you do not pubish the link here, but it is there.)
https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/About-Those-Failing-Gover-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Disruption_Education_Education-Funding_Education-No-Child–200206-307.html#comment755649
I added a comment taken from National School Choice Week in Wisconsin the Ressinger piece on National School Choice Week in Wisconsin (links in this blog are at the address above or here at Jan’s blog) https://janresseger.wordpress.com/2020/01/31/23043/
** “Take a look at National School Choice Week in Wisconsin where the false ‘choice’ narrative disrupted public schools and genuine education for all!”**
” Last week Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos went to Madison, Wisconsin’s capital city, to honor National School Choice Week, a celebration of vouchers and charter schools that was established and is promoted every year by groups like the American Federation for Childrenthe group DeVos herself helped found and to which she has regularly donated generouslyand Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd.
Pence and DeVos were not welcomed by Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers, who skipped the event altogether. Before he was elected governor, Evers was the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, and before that he was a public school educator. Evers has devoted his career to leading and promoting the state’s public schools.
Neither Pence nor DeVos was welcomed by the Capital Times in Madison, which editorialized: “Pence parrots the talking points of the wealthy campaign donors he has always served”.
That’s what Pence did Tuesday in Madison” Pence was promoting ongoing efforts to undermine public education with the usual cabal of billionaire-funded advocates for the agenda of the Trump-Pence administration’s ‘school choice’ agenda” Out-of-state billionaires like DeVos and politicians like Pence have for years targeted Wisconsin in their efforts to promote ‘school choice’ initiatives. They got traction when one of their lackeys, Republican Gov. Scott Walker, was in office. But Walker, a Pence crony, was swept out of office in 2018 by a supporter of public education, Democrat Tony Evers.”
The Capital Times’ editorial board adds that this year, there has been pressure against school privatization in the city of Milwaukee itself: “(I)n the spring of 2019, critics of school choice and school privatization schemes swept school board elections in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city” Key to the pushback against the ‘school choice’ advocates was the activism of African American and Latino Milwaukeeans, and the determination of groups such as Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC) and Voces de la Frontera Action, Inc. to defend public education.”
On the very same day Pence and DeVos came to Madison to extol school choice, the Capital Times’ Briana Reilly reportedthat State Representative, Jonathan Brostoff joined fellow Democratic lawmakers and public school advocates to reintroduce a bill that would phase out Wisconsin vouchers and reinstate a Student Achievement Guarantee in Education, to reduce public school class sizes and upgrade the curriculum in participating public schools.”
What would you expect? As e.e.cummings put it: ““a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man”
LOL
Cummings is an interesting guy. When he talked about democracaveatemptorcy, he was extolling the ideas so the fascists of his day.
Failing-government schools. Superb, Mercedes!
The Deformers and Disrupers also misinterpret the apostrophe in the phrase “America’s failing public schools.” They think that this phrase means
“the failing public schools in America” (the apostrophe to indicate possession)
when it actually means
America is failing public schools. (the apostrophe to indicate a contraction of the verb is)
Two songs, one for Trumpty Dumpty, one for Ditzy DeVoid: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/09/07/ditzy-devoid-and-iq45-two-songs/
I have not fact checked the fact checkers, but the so-called “opportunity scholarship” that was awarded to a student during Trump’s rant about gov’ment run schools will be a check from DeVos’ personal checkbook, not gov’ment funds. You recall that Trump’s inaugural address referred to public schools “where children were learning nothing.” These lines were from Steven Miller, who became a darling of the ultra right as a college student and who has been attacking public schools for a very long time. He supplies much of the hate vocabulary for Trump.
America is failing its public schools in many different ways. The way in which we fund schools shortchanges students that live in poor neighborhoods. The way in which we have allowed wealthy people with agendas to insert themselves into public education is wrong and harmful. The way in which we test, rate and rank schools, districts, teachers based on perceptions and test scores is highly misleading. The way in which public education has been attacked, undermined and tested to death is failing our young people.
Ignoring reality instead accepting legitimate evidence has allowed public schools to become a gigantic political football. The ensuing chaos has resulted in lots of disruption with little else to show for it. Serving market based education ahead of making a genuine effort to serve the needs of students has been a costly failure that has been needlessly abusive to students across the country.
Donald Trump is only following his gut instincts that are responsible for his incredible success in business, the business of crime that is.
“Trump’s Most Trusted Adviser is His Own Gut”
The president’s glandular instinct has become a substitute for all expertise and all nuance.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/trump-follows-his-gut/580084/
Trump’s incredible gut instincts led to these failures:
“Donald Trump’s 13 Biggest Business Failures. Trump likes to brag about his wealth, but some of his business decisions have been real duds”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trumps-13-biggest-business-failures-59556/
“Here Are All of Trump’s Bankruptcies and Failed Businesses”
http://labor411.org/411-blog/here-are-all-of-trump-s-bankruptcies-and-failed-businesses/
“A Complete List of Donald Trump’s Business Disasters”
https://gawker.com/a-complete-list-of-donald-trump-s-business-disasters-1764151188
The only venture Trump has been successful with is money laundering.
“How Russian Money Helped Save Trump’s Business
After his financial disasters two decades ago, no U.S. bank would touch him. Then foreign money began flowing in.”
“World of Influence: A guide to Trump’s foreign business interests”
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/06/trump-foreign-business-interests/
I would not be surprised if Trump dumped Pence and replaced him with Putin as his VP running mate for 2020 and then again in 2024 and then again in 2028.
They can’t even include public school students and families when they write about their “government schools” phrase:
“To listeners like public school organizations and teachers’ union leaders, the use of the term seemed intentionally provocative, especially in light of conservatives’ distrust of government and desire to reduce its reach. The term also seems to paint some public schools with a broad, impersonal brush.”
In edreformworld, public school students and parents do not exist. The only people who might possibly object to them portraying all public schools and public school students as “failing’ are “public school organizations” and “teachers unions”
They’ve completely erased our kids and parents.
It’s remarkable – people who supposedly are employed full time in “education” OMIT 90% of students and families in the country. Now THAT is capture.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2020/02/government-schools-public-schools-trump-devos-school-choice.html?cmp=soc-twitter-shr
We all pay attention to the fact that they bash our students and schools, and that’s certainly important, but what is more important is that also do no work of any kind on behalf of our students and schools- and they’re public employees.
It is possible to find and hire people who support public school students. We’re not obligated to hire and pay people who undermine them. That’s not a rule we have to follow.
Failed implies they intended a different outcome.
But they got precisely the outcome they desired.
and they have taken advantage at every turn: the outcome thus becomes simply that, pay attention and take advantage