I posted yesterday that Betsy DeVos set aside more than $300 million of the billions in coronavirus aid to advance her personal agenda of undermining public schools. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who is chair of the House subcommittee that oversees education appropriations, criticized her misuse of the funds.
Chalkbeat has the story.
Betsy thinks the days of learning in physical buildings are obsolete.
I have often posted the research on virtual charter schools. The 2015 CREDO study showed the abject failure of online charter schools. Their results are abysmal. The most EPIC charter scandals are associated with virtual charters like ECOT in Ohio, now bankrupt, and the A1 chain in California, where 11 people were indicted for the disappearance of more than $50 million in state funds.
Betsy’s ideas are a proven failure.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It is not surprising that DeVos would try to exapnd failed cyber instruction. She will stop at nothing to move public money out of public education and transfer public it into private pockets. Considering that the family empire is built on Scamway, DeVos is used to exploiting working families. The fact that there is no educational value in cyber instruction will not deter her. Her decision is based on an opportunity to undermine public education, more profit for corporations and reducing the tax obligations of her fellow billionaires.
Nothing (except massive citizen action) will stop Republicans from their self-appointed ideological task: Privatize everything. Help no unless they are white and wealthy.
I saw the request from the Network for Public Education about contacting representatives about this. Well, I contacted my Florida representatives including the senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott about the federal bill involving charters and vouchers in March.
It was pretty much a waste of time. Rick Scott’s form letter response was him bragging about the “success“ he had in Florida as governor expanding “choice“ options. Rubio‘s response was about expanding “choice” as well. I put quotation marks around “choice,” because it’s not true parental choice if the school gets to pick you. My house representative is a Democrat, but she sent me the wrong form letter back, because it was talking about Pell Grants.
Ugh.
Like they say, Flor-i-duh
Florida is hopeless until the parents and teachers and graduates of public schools throw out the privatizers and profiteers. So long as the state keeps electing people who represent the choice lobby, then public schools will be thrown under the bus.
FYI, Florida gives $1 billion every year to unaccountable religious schools for vouchers, schools that don’t take the state tests and that are free to hire uncertified staff, even those who have not graduated from college. They are also free to discriminate against people who offend their religious sensibilities.
Florida gives $2 billion a year to charter operators, many of whom are related to legislators and even married to the State Commissioner of Education (who is not an educator). Many of Florida’s charters are low-performing, and many are run by for-profit corporations.
Yes. I was going to reply to their form letters with rebuttals, but I didn’t think it was a good use of my time. It’s better to champion those ideas at the state level since the Feds can only do so much. Even if I changed the senators’ minds, we still have Governor Ron DeSantis, Ed Commissioner Richard Corcoran, and a privatization-friendly majority state legislature yielding more power over what happens in Florida schools.
I’m not sure how much influence Jeb Bush still has since the “old Florida Republican” was ousted in the primary by Trump boy “new Republican” DeSantis.
perfect understanding: ” it’s not true parental choice if the school gets to pick you.”