Congress again gave $440 million to the wasteful and unnecessary federal Charter Schools Program, enabling Secretary DeVos sole discretion over where she wants to plant new charter schools, whether or not the community wants them.
DeVos just handed out $131 million to start new charters. The largest amount went to Texas, which is under heavy siege by national charter chains.
As studies by the Network for Public Education revealed, nearly 40% of the charter schools subsidized by the CSP either never opened or closed soon after opening, a waste of $1 billion in taxpayer money.
The federal Charter Schools Program is a massive boondoggle for the charter industry and a personal slush fund for DeVos. She has given many millions to corporate charter chains so that they can compete with and undermine public schools that are democratically controlled.
In a time of fiscal crisis, why is the federal government paying for a separate system of privately managed schools instead of helping public schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DeVos knows that as soon as Biden is elected November that she is out of a job. She is taking her last breaths that trying to destroy the United States public education system. Devos has been totally worthless as the US Secretary of Education. Trump and DeVos have absolutely nothing to be proud of when it comes to the education of our children.
yes; clearly, her only goal has been to push non-public options
“The coronavirus pandemic has made it clearer than ever before that students need the freedom to choose where, when and how they learn,” said Secretary DeVos. “All too many students, particularly the most vulnerable, have fallen further behind because the one-size-fits-all system couldn’t transition and adapt to meet their needs. A bright spot has been high-quality charter schools, many of which pivoted quickly and kept learning going. These grants will help to ensure these high-quality options are available to even more students in the future.”
Shame that they got nothing at all accomplished for the 90% of students who attend public schools.
The entire focus in this pandemic has been using to the pandemic to promote vouchers and charters.
Public school students are not even a consideration, unless they’re used as a political tool to achieve ed reform privatization objectives.
We should start hiring some public employees who support public schools and public school students and intend to do some actual work on their behalf. Twenty years of neglect of the unfashionable public schools is long enough.
Hiring within the ed reform echo chamber means public school students will continue to be neglected and ignored by politicians and policy makers.
90% of students attend the schools the ed reform “movement” disfavors and doesn’t support. That harms public school students.
It’s just stunning how we have this huge “ed reform movement” – thousands of paid advocates- and yet somehow the children and families who attend public schools are completely neglected and ignored.
Are ed reformers lousy advocates for students who attend public schools or do they not work on behalf of students who attend public schools? It’s one or the other because as long as this “movement” had dominated public school students have gotten the short end of the stick.
The US Department of Education hasn’t lifted a finger to assist our schools in this pandemic. Why am I paying thousands of public employees to lobby for vouchers?
This is what we’re paying the public employees at the US Department of Education for:
“Hoover Institution
Wednesday join Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Eric Hanushek and Assistant Secretary James Blew for a discussion on the federal role in education, part of Hoover’s Capital Conversations series”
Another ed reform echo chamber discussion where the true believers interview each other.
No practical or useful work on behalf of students in public schools at all. They’re too busy privatizing our schools to do any work on our schools’ behalf.
There isn’t a public school student or family in this country who can point to any assistance or benefit they received from any of this “work” the last 7 months. They return no value to us at all.
100% echo chamber, 100% irrelevant and useless to 90% of students. That’s ed reform.
You can really tell the deep commitment in ed reform to public school students by the fact that they only lobbied for additional funding for charter and private schools and did no advocacy at all for public school funding. To tell which schools this “movement” prefers one only has to look at which schools got priority funding- it wasn’t public schools.
Once again, the 90% of students who attend public schools are the dead least priority, simply because the ed reform “movement” is ideologically opposed to their schools.
Can we pretty please hire at least one person in federal education policy who supports the schools 90% of students attend and will do some actual work on their behalf? How is it fair that 90% of students have no advocates in DC simply because they attend the unfashionable public schools that these folks have deemed unworthy?
Here’s an example:
https://fordhaminstitute.org/ohio/commentary/why-are-graduation-rates-soaring
The Fordham Institute is an ed reform think tank. They support charter schools and private school vouchers. They do no advocacy for public school students at all.
So why have lawmakers in my state, Ohio, outsourced all public education policy to them?
Shouldn’t public school students and families have people who support their students and schools directing what goes on in their schools?
Would charter and voucher supporters accept it if all charter and voucher was made by people who don’t support those schools? Why should public schools students accept it?
Ed reformers don’t attend public schools and they don’t support public schools. So why do they set all the policy for public schools?
Why can’t we have people who value our schools and students directing what goes on in our schools? Charters get that, and so do private schools. Only public schools are stuck with policy written and directed by people who lobby against public schools and hope to replace them.