Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has never made a secret of her contempt for public schools.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro criticized DeVos for encouraging vouchers while dispensing coronavirus relief funds. This was never part of the intent of Congress. DeVos does whatever she wants to do without regard to Congressional intent.
Usually, it is a bad idea for a Cabinet officer to ignore the appropriators. DeVos doesn’t care. She has an ideological passion for vouchers.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2020
CONTACT:
Will Serio: 202-225-3661
DeLauro Calls on Secretary DeVos to Remove Ideological Restrictions from Emergency Education Relief
WASHINGTON, DC — Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Education (ED), today released the following statement after ED announced the availability of emergency education relief funding for States “with the highest coronavirus burden” through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).
“Congress provided $308 million in emergency education relief in the CARES Act ‘for grants to States with the highest coronavirus burden’ to offer additional help to parts of the country where COVID-19 outbreaks have been more widespread and severe. I am astonished to see Secretary DeVos use today’s invitation to applicants for this critical aid to fund divisive, ideologically-driven policy priorities: including voucher-like proposals. At best, the Secretary is exploiting emergency relief legislation to insert Secretarial priorities not outlined in this section of the CARES Act. At worst, the Secretary is deliberately misreading the law to conjure up purposes for these resources that were not provided in Section 18001(a)(3) of the law. Secretary DeVos must back down from these inappropriate actions during this time of national emergency and refrain from imposing new restrictions and conditions on the aid provided to States.”
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delauro.house.gov
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DeVos should be ashamed of herself for trying to promote vouchers at a time like this! She continues her quest to privatize public education. I am a public school teacher in Buffalo, NY and created a hip-hop “diss” track about her called “Resign Betsy,” and it is my hope that it will create a greater awareness of her destructive nature. I have been trying to contact Diane about this but have been unable to. If someone reading this has the ability to forward her this message, that would be great. Yes, I am aware that I am posting a comment on her blog but cannot find any way to email or connect with her privately.
MC ZiLL – Resign Betsy
Jeff,
I see every comment here.
Diane
Hi Diane! Okay great thanks for letting me know. I won’t continue to excessively post sorry about that. If you get the chance, please watch the music video as I would love to hear your thoughts about it!
I for one got it Jeff, & impressed! & sending as we speak to one of my millennial musician sons, currently a piano teacher who spent many yrs as a hip-hop music-beat-composer w/albums to boot, for his critique. How did you ever find time to acquire such talent while a publicsch teacher? Am guessing you’re a music teacher &/or this is your off-hrs avocation. Keep it up!
Thanks bethree5! Appreciate your kind words and thanks for sending it along. I’ve been creating hip-hop for 20 years, almost as long as I’ve been a teacher in the inner city of Buffalo. I teach high school math but have always been a lover of all music, particularly genuine hip-hop. Voice of the people for the people. I’m not going to sit around and let people like DeVos ransack public education without speaking up and taking action. Always looking for fresh beats for my educational projects so have him contact me if interested. I have a bunch of other educational tracks so check them out on my YouTube page.
Thanks for sending, Jeff. I will post it in May. Using your real name or not?
Jeff as a teacher & musician you’ll appreciate this. In early hischdays this son used to play me his new beats while I drove him to school. He’d record himself on various instruments, create w/samples, arrange the tracks on a program called acid. Eventually there would be a trail of vocalists heading up the stairs to his attic bedroom; I was never allowed to hear the final product. I had this general idea that he was the percussionist/ musicman/ techie & they the poets. Reinforced by the fact he was SpEd w/LDs (tho I’d always thought his school writing was rather good when he shared it). So one night at the local night club, both boys’ rock bands were playing & I stayed right to the end. lead singer of his elder brother’s band coaxed him onstage for what had become an informal freestyling competition: O..M..G! The kid was ad-libbing rhyming quatrains like an Ogden Nash & Edward Lear rolled into one. Proud mama.
Diane that would be great, thank you so much! You may use my real name Jeff Grossi but if you would incorporate my hip hop name of MC ZiLL (ZiLL is all capital except the i) that would be appreciated.
bethree5, I appreciate your story! How funny. I am definitely familiar with the Acid software, as it was an old-school music program for looping multiple tracks. I use rhyming techniques regularly in my classroom, and have found it works very well with all types of learning styles and abilities. In fact, some of my best “freestyling” participants have been my students with learning disabilities! I had a kid about 10-12 years ago with a pretty significant speech impediment and couldn’t say a complete sentence without stuttering. But I would put a beat on and he would freestyle super clearly and without restrictions! Amazing. So cool that you stayed and were able to enjoy his impromptu performance! Music truly connects us all if you let it.
Right? Reminds me of James Earl Jones’ story. And you answered what would have been my next question: do you use hip-hop in class? (Oh– I’ll check out your youtube channel). I use melody– call-back songs– to help PreK kids acquire routine Spanish Q&A (¿Cómo te llamas? Me llamo Juan), and we exaggerate the language’s built-in rapid-fire rhythm to master new phrases.
Jeff — love this. I just retired from San Francisco Unified (and am also a musician who plays out with other Boomers and non-Boomers alike!). Refreshing to see a great production — I can barely imagine the hours put into this. Am forwarding your piece out to my circles. I hope you are building a repertoire of education-themed jams.
Freudian autocorrect-slip in the title. Vouchers make people say ouches.
My thought too. Fortuitous, if not Freudian.
DeVos needs to be removed and then arrested for her continuous graft and corruption perpetrated while in office.
Lock her up.
Agreed!
You go, Diane!
All she does is promote vouchers. If she’s not lobbying for them she’s giving interviews to anti-public school activists promising more and more funding and support for private schools.
She certainly doesn’t perform any work on behalf of students and families in public schools. Look for yourselves. It’s a public record. Hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of any public school student in this country for the last three years. No record of a positive contribution at all.
Our kids attend “the wrong” schools, so she refuses to serve them.
ah, the irony of putting her in a ‘public’ office attached to a public money paycheck
Since +/- 90% of students and families in the US attend public schools, wouldn’t it make sense to elect a President who will hire people who intend to make SOME positive contribution to the schools those students and families attend?
How did we end up paying hundreds of people in government who refuse to do any work at all for public school students?
It’s crazy. Absolutely nuts.
I understand these folks are ideologically opposed to public schools so therefore refuse to work on their behalf, but perhaps we could think about hiring some people who DON’T have this ideological objection to….working for their salaries?
Just…how?
This reminds me of race to the top with ARRA Funds.
States desperate for cash are dangled a lifeline only if they will promise unproven reforms that will last long after the funding is gone – regardless if those funds make sense.
It isn’t QUITE as heavy handed as RTTT – but it’s not far behind. RTTT was wrong and so is this “competition” – so a mid western state with hardly any corona virus might beat our NY for more funding even if their application has next to nothing to do with their corona virus burden?
I hope NY sues if that happens.
That miserable, mean, brainless witch needs to stop destroying our nation’s education system. Our educational system was once the envy of the rest of the world and she has made huge strides in putting it right at the bottom of the list. Connie Ingalls, Ph.D.
Stop the saleof our education system , schools, and good teachers with real 4-6 year educations instead of workshop educated ones.