Tennessee’s public schools will share federal CARES funding with private schools, as Secretary of Efucation Betsy DeVos recommends.
DeVos never skips a chance to funnel federal money to non public schools. Tennessee has a Trumper Governor, and together they are harming the state’s public schools.
DeVos has slyly turned the CARES Act funding into the voucher funding that Congress has consistently rejected.
Chalkbeat reports:
The decision means students in the state’s 200-plus private schools could receive more support than they expected from Tennessee’s share, while high-poverty public school districts would get less money.
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DeVos instructed districts to distribute CARES money to support students in private schools based on their total enrollments — not just on the number of low-income students they serve.
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The interpretation could effectively shift tens of millions of dollars to aid private schools across Tennessee.
This is the DeVos plan for income redistribution.
Stea from the poor and give to the rich.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Go Indiana!
https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/indiana-education-department-dismisses-federal-cares-school-funding-guidance
That is truly the most delicious typo I’ve seen in a long time. Betsy DeVos truly is the Secretary of F-U-cation!
Freudian! 🙂
She does no advocacy or work on behalf of the 90% of US students in public schools. Every single press release is about her lobbying for either charters or private schools.
It’s bizarre how unconnected to reality ed reform has become. Public school students don’t exist in the echo chamber. They “disappeared” 90% of students in the country.
Meanwhile the paid ranks of ed reformers keep growing. More and more well-paid adults who exclusively serve a small slice of US students and deliberately exclude public schools and public school students and families.
The 90% in public schools? No one in the fashionable DC policy set is interested in them at all.
And in current days the word “blatantly” could be added into this sentence: “It’s bizarre how blatantly unconnected to reality ed reform has become. “
Public school students and families are getting screwed in Ohio too. Huge cuts to public schools while the ed reform lobby in Columbus protects charter funding and voucher funding.
No one in Columbus works for public school students and families. It’s a problem and the public needs to correct it, or kids in public schools will continue to be the last priority.
Every public school in the country was shut down last week and you know what DeVos’ team of publicly paid employees were doing?
They spent the week promoting charter schools. They return no value to students in public schools. They simply do no work on behalf of our students, because they are ideologically opposed to our schools. Even in an unprecedented crisis they cannot be bothered with public schools.
As far as I’m concerned we can shut down the USDOE. Whatever mission or purpose they once had, they now serve as yet another charter and voucher lobbying group. They’ve been so captured by the ed reform movement they serve no useful role at all for public school students.
“As far as I’m concerned we can shut down the USDOE.”
Well, I think we agreed that this is exactly the general plan of the Trump administration: eliminate US departments which serve the public: education, housing, environment, etc. So Trump puts leaders to these departments who run them to ground so that the people will for their closing.
So no, I wouldn’t call for the closing of either of these.
Public school supporters and families can see the ideological bias against their schools and students on the USDOE website:
https://www.ed.gov/
An entire section devoted to promoting private and charter schools and nothing at all for public schools or public school students, other than “school safety”.
It is difficult to FIND a public school student or school mentioned in any of their promotional materials or advertising. Incredibly, this public agency has apparently decided they have no duty or obligation to serve the 90% of students and families in public schools.
This is what the ed reform echo chamber creates. It is now unfashionable to even mention public school students in DC circles.
This is such an injustice. First, Tennesseans in the downtown Nashville business and neighborhoods experienced the destructive tornado in Nashville in February. Then, this COVID19 pandemic shuts down the country. Then on Easter Sunday night an EF3 sized tornado disrupts many many lives in Southeast TN, followed by a Federal government refusing to designate TN as qualifying for resources as a result of experiencing a natural devastation of over 350 properties in more than 3 counties and four people losing their lives, And now, the Federal government, in collaboration with a pro-voucher and pro-privatization TN Governor, chooses to steal CARE tax dollars from public schools and give more to private schools! The nerve of DeVos and Governor Lee! They have no shame regarding their out of control greed or their obvious alliance with other privateer proponents. They are choosing to sow seeds of inequity and creating future pipelines of disparities for our children and underserved communities.
Now, more than ever, is the time for those of us who believe in and advocate for public education in TN and all across the country, to organize, engage and advocate for more funds for our public schools and protest the cuts and salary freezes being promoted by some local school boards, in reaction to county funding authorities demanding that school administrators submit balanced budget requests for 2020-2021!
Are there any other states which also openly accepted the DeVos suggestion?