Betsy DeVos lost the biggest fight of her tenure as Secretary of Education. Federal judges consistently rejected her legally binding rule requiring states to give private schools a share of the $13 billion Congress allocated for public schools and for needy students in private schools. DeVos wanted private schools to get a share of the federal money without regard to the need of their students. The judges said no.
After fighting for her position, DeVos admitted defeat and decided not to appeal the court decisions.
Some states have already given federal funds to private schools, using DeVos’ formula, and it is not clear whether that money will be clawed back.
Charter schools also received a share of the $13 billion in CARES funds, which they qualified for as “public schools.” Many charter and private schools also applied for and received millions of dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program (public schools were not eligible for PPP). A study by Good Jobs Inc. determined that charter and private schools obtained SIX TIMES as much federal relief money as public schools.
Since the money was given to the states, whether they”claw” the money back will probably depend on how enamored they are with school choice and, perhaps, how loudly their public school families shout.
and the words “enamored with” could likely be written as “indebted to”
Good catch.
Betsy DeVos and the US Department of Education have done absolutely nothing for US public schools in this pandemic.
Completely and utterly irrelevant to the 90% of students and families who attend public schools. There is not a public school student in this country who would notice if none of these people showed up for work on Monday. Irrelevant to the vast, vast majority of students.
“There is not a public school student in this country who would notice if none of these people showed up for work on Monday. ”
How right you are.
cx: you are
Do you know what they’re working on now? A social studies curriculum. Having not lifted a finger to assist or support the 50 million children who attend public schools in this crisis, they are now planning on spending the next year jamming a social studies curriculum into the schools they didn’t and don’t attend and don’t support.
Public school policy in this country is inexplicably and ludicrously directed by people who are ideologically opposed to the existence of public education.
Is it any wonder public school students are served so poorly by the people we all pay in government? None of them support public schools! How did we think this was going to go?
I have a radical idea. What if we replaced these folks with people who actually intend to perform some work on behalf of public school students? Seems sensible enough. We should try that.
Sweet: The ruling came from a Trump appointed judge.