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Nancy Bailey: What Does “Billionaire Patriotism” Look Like?

By dianeravitch
January 22, 2026 //
4

Nancy Bailey is an extraordinary blogger. She was a teacher for many years, and she’s an independent thinker. She has a keen eye for frauds, and she calls them out. A few years ago, Nancy and I collaborated on a book called Edspeak and Doubletalk: A Glossary to Decipher Hypocrisy and Save Public Schooling (Teachers College Press). We worked together closely by computer and telephone, despite the fact that we had never met.

One of this blog’s loyal readers said recently that he judged educational phenomena by the simple term WWNBD: “What Would Nancy Bailey Do?”

A good watchword.

In this post, Nancy Bailey catches Secretary of Education Linda McMahon devoting herself to a completely illegal activity, as explicitly defined in federal law: changing the history curriculum of American public schools.

On one hand, the former wrestling entrepreneur says that education should be returned to the states, but at the same time, she’s promoting a rightwing history curriculum that she describes as a “patriotic curriculum.”

Secretary McMahon is breaking the law. Surely the first duty of a citizen or patriot is to uphold the law. Secretary McMahon may be ignorant of the law but ignorance is not a defense for illegal actions.

In its wisdom, at the creation of the U.S. Department of Education in 1979, the U.S. Congress forbade any official in the U.S. Department of Education from interfering in matters of curriculum.

Nancy Bailey writes:

Traveling across the country, Education Secretary Linda McMahon is promoting patriotism and “History Rocks,” her religious civics curriculum for kids. She does this as Americans have watched the terror unfold in Minneapolis, including the shooting of a mom protecting undocumented immigrants, there will apparently be no investigation.

In addition, billionaire McMahon, like billionaire Betsy DeVos before her, and billionaire Donald Trump, chip away at the fabric of public schooling that this country’s children have relied on for years. She continues to dismantle the U.S. ED for her boss, without Congressional approval (a terrible civics lesson in and of itself), casting aside laws protecting students. Either she doesn’t understand the harm she’s doing, or she doesn’t care.

McMahon’s emphasis on state-run schools (public schools have always been run by states) is more about vouchers, which the privileged can cash in on to supplement the tuition of their children attending private schools, which are unaffordable for many Americans. Those other children will get charter schools, which are inconsistent and mostly unregulated.

It’s not just McMahon. For years, the incredibly wealthy in America have done little to assist those who helped them acquire their wealth. When it comes to public schools, they’ve done much to destroy them.

What kind of civics is McMahon promoting? How patriotic must children be when they don’t have access to decent health care or good schools? Patriotism? How difficult is it to wave the flag when you’re a hungry child without a home? Or what if you come from a family of undocumented immigrants, whose dream has been to be able to wave that flag, but their dream has now been dashed?

Senator Bernie Sanders has said:

It’s hard to miss.

Our country is rapidly evolving into two Americas.

One America consists of less than a thousand billionaires who have an unprecedented amount of wealth and power and have never ever had it so good.

The other America, where the vast majority live, consists of tens of millions of families who are struggling to put food on the table, pay their bills and worry that their kids will have a lower standard of living than they do. 

How is McMahon giving back to America? Providing kids a so-called civics program that includes religion is hollow when they’re hungry.

Has she spoken with US agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins? Rollins is not a billionaire yet, but on her way with an acquired $15 million. She claimed last week that Americans could save money by aligning their meals with the new Department of Health and Human Services dietary guidelines. They could simply eat“a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli”, “a corn tortilla” and “one other thing”.

She states this while McMahon told FOX News:

“…too many schools have moved away from teaching the basics of what it means to be an American — from understanding the Constitution to showing respect for the nation’s symbols — warning that America’s sense of national identity is quickly fading.

We don’t teach love of country. We don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance. We are not creating that same sense of patriotism. …in some districts, the word patriot was actually crossed out of some of the curriculum in some of our schools.

History Rocks is a national partnership with the following religiously connected groups:

It’s not clear which 50 national and state organizations are involved, although America 250 lists many. Here are a few:

  • 1776 Project Foundation
  • Alumni Free Speech Alliance
  • American Legislative Exchange Council
  • American Principles Project
  • Moms for Liberty
  • Moms for America
  • National Association of Scholars
  • CatholicVote
  • Center for Education Reform
  • Defending Education

Celia Clarke, a PBS reporter, covering McMahon’s visit to a New York high school, described History Rocks:

She was there as part of a national tour she’s doing. She’s going to visit every state, and they call this the History Rocks! Trail To Independence Tour, where McMahon is visiting, as I said, one school in each state. This whole thing is organized by a private coalition in partnership with the Department of Education, and it’s a coalition of conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA. These groups have a goal of using education to promote patriotism, but in a very specific way, which includes adding a particular Christian perspective on American history.

McMahon doesn’t appear to understand the history behind patriotism and public education. If she did, she would know there has been a long history of controversy.

Leo Tolstoy said:

Patriotism in its simplest, clearest, and most indubitable meaning is nothing but an instrument for the attainment of the government’s ambitious and mercenary aims, and a renunciation of human dignity, common sense, and conscience by the governed, and a slavish submission to those who hold power. That is what is really preached wherever patriotism is championed. Patriotism is slavery.

Albert Einstein stated:

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them!

Teaching patriotism in public schools has always been debated. In 2006, Diane Ravitch penned “Should We Teach Patriotism?” She didn’t endorse a special class for patriotism but instead proposed:

Students who study American history will learn about the sacrifices of previous generations who sought to safeguard our liberties and improve our society, and they will learn about the men and women of all races and backgrounds who struggled to create a land of freedom, justice, and opportunity. Students must learn too about the failings of our democracy, about the denials of freedom and justice that blight our history.

But to deprive students of an education that allows them to see themselves as part of this land and its history and culture would be a crying shame. Just as students must learn to value themselves as individuals, to value their families, and to value their community, so too should they learn to value the nation of which they are citizens. To love one’s country does not require one to ignore its faults. To love one’s country does not require one to dismiss the virtues of other countries. Indeed, those who are patriotic about their own country tend to respect those who live elsewhere and also love their respective countries.

That last part about not dismissing the virtues of other countries eerily rings true today, as the President seeks to take over other countries, ignoring the great needs, especially those of America’s children in the United States.

On this MLK day, consider where we’ve been as a nation, and where it looks like we’re sadly going, and what it must mean to America’s children, every one of them.

Linda McMahon’s billionaire patriotism is not right. It does nothing to help American children live good lives where they can become successful, Republican or Democrat.

References

Ravitch, D. (2006). Should we teach patriotism? Phi Delta Kappan, 87(8), 579–581.

Categories Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, History, Trump

Trump Gave a Boiler-Plate Stump Speech at Davos

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2026 //
11

David Graham reported for The Atlantic from Davos about Trump’s big speech to foreign heads of state and leaders of business and culture.

It was, writes Graham, filled with the trademarks of Trump speeches: lies, incoherence and confusion. It was the kind of speech that Trump has delivered to adoring audiences while campaigning. Filled with boasts, grievances, and exaggeration.

“Without us, right now you’d all be speaking German,” Donald Trump scolded European leaders at the World Economic Forum this morning. Perhaps the Germans have a word for the experience of watching your country’s leader embarrass himself and the country on the global stage.

Where does one start in summarizing such a speech? The straightforward racism? The economic illiteracy? The determination to alienate allies? The many moments where the president said things that were blatantly, provably false? And because he rambled through more than an hour, he covered a lot of ground.

The most anticipated section was about Trump’s ongoing effort to acquire Greenland. Trump argued that only the United States could defend the island, which he perplexingly also dismissed as “a giant piece of ice” and accidentally called “Iceland” on a few occasions. He also said Greenland was essential for the “golden dome” missile-defense system he claims he will build. (He denied that the U.S. is after rare-earth minerals in Greenland.)

Although Trump insisted that he has the utmost respect for both Danes and Greenlanders, nothing else he said evinced any. He accused them of being ungrateful for the U.S. defense of Greenland during World War II and argued that the American government erred when it “gave it back” after the war. Trump delivered a classic mafioso threat to take Greenland by force, saying that U.S. military might was irresistible, before adding nonchalantly that he would not do such a thing. This was not as reassuring as some headlines might lead readers to believe. And he said that if European leaders didn’t acquiesce, “we will remember….”

Categories Education Reform

Heather Cox Richardson: Trump Is Not Well

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2026 //
3

Heather Cox Richardson read Trump’s frequent posts on his social media outlet “Ttuth Social,” and she included some of them in this post. He is not well. He has delusions of grandeur, omnipotence. But his glorious accomplishments have yet to be acknowledged with a Nobel Prize. He rants on about the 2020 election, which he lost decisively. He refuses to accept reality. He is wildly envious of Joe Biden. He commands the world’s most powerful military. He is angry and vengeful. He is not well. He is delusional.

She writes:

World leaders are gathered at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which is taking place from January 19 to January 23. Trump is scheduled to go to the meeting in person for the first time since 2020, although now, with him still in the U.S., his social media account has been posting wildly.

Just after midnight, the account posted that Trump had “a very good telephone call with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, concerning Greenland. I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security. There can be no going back—On that, everyone agrees!” Shortly after, the account posted an AI image of world leaders sitting in front of Trump’s desk in the Oval Office with a large picture of North America entirely covered with stars and stripes to indicate American ownership—including Canada, as well as Greenland. The flag also covers Venezuela.

Then the account posted an image of Trump with Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio next to him as he stands on what looks to be an arctic landscape, holding a U.S. flag waving above a sign that reads: “GREENLAND—US TERRITORY EST. 2026.”

Later on, it would post private text messages to Trump from Rutte and French president Emmanuel Macron, mocking their attempts at diplomacy, and repost a message reading: “at what point are we going to realize the enemy is within [angry emoji]. China and Russia are the bogeymen when the real threat is the U.N., NATO, and [Islam].”

And then the account posted: “No single person, or President, has done more for NATO than President Donald J. Trump. If I didn’t come along there would be no NATO right now!!! It would have been in the ash heap of History. Sad, but TRUE!!! President DJT”

But seizing Greenland was not the only thing on the mind of administration officials. The account’s posts suggest they are worried about Trump’s declining popularity. It launched an attack on Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, whom the administration is targeting for alleged mortgage fraud, just before it claimed that Trump was lowering mortgage rates. Later, the account would post a short video of Trump under which the chyron read: “I AM STANDING UP FOR AMERICAN AUTOWORKERS,” although the video was of him promising to stop all federal payments to “sanctuary cities” on February 1.

Then it bopped over to claiming that the people resisting ICE violence in Minnesota are “agitators and insurrectionists. These people are professionals! No person acts the way they act. They are highly trained to scream, rant, and rave, like lunatics, in a certain manner, just like they are doing. They are troublemakers who should be thrown in jail, or thrown out of the Country.” The first to go, he said, should be Democratic governor Tim Walz and Democratic representative Ilhan Omar, both of whom he called corrupt. Later, the account insisted that Democratic governor of California Gavin Newsom is also corrupt.

Later, the account posted that “[t]he Department of Homeland Security and ICE must start talking about the murderers and other criminals that they are capturing and taking out of the system. They are saving many innocent lives! There are thousands of vicious animals in Minnesota alone, which is why the crime stats are, Nationwide, the BEST EVER RECORDED! Show the Numbers, Names, and Faces of the violent criminals, and show them NOW. The people will start supporting the Patriots of ICE, instead of the highly paid troublemakers, anarchists, and agitators! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN”

Then the account turned to reposting long-debunked lies about the 2020 presidential election. It reposted claims that there was voter fraud in Nevada (there wasn’t), that Dominion Voting Machines flipped 435,000 votes from Trump to Biden (they didn’t), that China had rigged the voting for Biden (it didn’t). It appears someone is thinking about the fact that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who investigated Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, will be testifying in public on Thursday, January 22.

In Washington today, in a long, rambling speech before reporters, Trump appeared to try to bring his social media post directly to the media. The speech was supposedly to outline the accomplishments of his administration, and he brandished a large sheaf of papers held together with a binder clip, labeled “ACCOMPLISHMENTS,” both of which he later threw on the floor.

But Trump turned from it almost immediately to insist that agents from Immigration and Customs enforcement are not arresting and detaining American citizens, although they very publicly did so on Sunday, breaking into the home of U.S. citizen ChongLy “Scott” Thao without a warrant, holding him at gunpoint, marching him outside in subfreezing weather in just sandals and underwear, driving him around for an hour or two before dropping him back at his home, and then lying that members of his family are on the registered sex offender list.

Trump denied such abuses, claiming that in Minnesota, ICE is apprehending “bad people.” To illustrate his claims, he held up one photo after another of individuals above the label “WORST OF WORST” as he mumbled about how bad they were: “many murderers, many many murderers, people that murdered.” Aaron Rupar of Public Notice, who has watched and clipped Trump’s speeches for years, commented: “folks, this is some really weird sh*t. the president is not well.”

From there, Trump was off with the usual litany of complaints about former president Joe Biden, and familiar stories like this one:

“I should’ve gotten the Nobel Prize for each war, but I don’t say that. I saved millions and millions of people. And don’t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn’t control the shots, ok? It’s in Norway. Norway controls the shots. They’ll say, ‘We have nothing to do with it.’ It’s a joke. They’ve lost such prestige. Got all—that’s why I have such respect for Maria doing what she did. She said, ‘I don’t deserve the Nobel Prize, he does.’ When she got it, they named—they said, ‘Wow that’s amazing, I thought President Trump would get it.’”

Trump also had words about Jack Smith: “Deranged Jack sick Smith. He’s a sick son of a b*tch. They gave me the worst of the worst.”

Trump’s threats against Greenland and his promise to hit Europe with high tariffs if governments there don’t support his seizure of Greenland drove the U.S. stock market sharply downward today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 870.74 points (1.76%), the S&P 500 was down 2.06%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.39%, the worst day for all three of these major indexes since October.

Yesterday Tom Fairless of the Wall Street Journalreported that, contrary to Trump’s repeated assertions, U.S. consumers and importers—not foreign countries—are the ones who have paid for Trump’s tariff war. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, echoed the findings of Yale and Harvard Business School economists, confirming that American consumers and importers have absorbed 96% of the cost of Trump’s tariffs.

Trump’s threats against Europe are an entirely different kettle of fish, for as Konrad Putzier, Chao Deng, and Sam Goldfarb of the Wall Street Journal explain, the European Union is the biggest trading partner of the U.S., its largest investor, and its closest financial ally. European leaders are discussing whether to retaliate against the U.S. using the EU’S Anti-Coercion Instrument, nicknamed “the Bazooka,” which can restrict imports and exports to any country trying to coerce an EU member and can limit U.S. investment there.

In The Atlantic on January 18, Robert Kagan wrote that “Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War II” and warned they “are neither materially nor psychologically ready for this future. For eight decades, they have inhabited a liberal international order shaped by America’s predominant strength” and “have grown accustomed to the world operating in a certain way.”

European and Asian allies have cooperated with the U.S. on both defense and trade, while the power of those alliances has prevented serious challenges to that order. Global trade has generally been free, and oceans have been safe for travel both by humans and container ships. Nuclear weapons have been limited by international agreement. “Americans are so accustomed to this basically peaceful, prosperous, and open world that they tend to think it is the normal state of international affairs, likely to continue indefinitely,” Kagan wrote. “They can’t imagine it unraveling, much less what that unraveling will mean for them.”

In Davos today, Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, told the world, “We are in the midst of a rupture.” The rules-based international order is no longer an automatic route to prosperity and security, he said, as the world’s most powerful nations now use that system’s economic integration to coerce other countries.

In its place, Carney offered a different vision than the “world of fortresses” made up of major powers with spheres of influence that Trump and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin are trying to build.

If “middle powers” pursue a system he called “variable geometry,” he said, they can rebalance the world and help solve global problems while still building strength at home. His vision is a version of the “diplomatic variable geometry” of former U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, but Carney’s vision decenters the U.S., noting that middle powers must work together to be at the table to avoid being on the menu. Under a system of variable geometry, countries can develop infrastructure and trade at home, strengthening their own nations, while negotiating new international agreements, as Canada has done recently with China, Qatar, India, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Thailand, the Philippines, and Mercosur, a South American trade bloc made up of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.

But for international affairs, variable geometry means creating international “coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests,” “coalitions that work issue by issue with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. What it’s doing is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.”

“We know the old order is not coming back,” Carney said. “We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy, but we believe that from the fracture we can build something bigger, better, stronger, more just. This is the task of the middle powers, the countries that have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from genuine cooperation.”

—

Notes:

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/19/trump-world-economic-forum-davos-who-isnt-going.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-u-s-citizen-says-ice-forced-open-the-door-to-his-minnesota-home-and-removed-him-in-his-underwear-after-a-warrantless-search

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/19/stock-market-today-live-updates.html

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/americans-are-the-ones-paying-for-tariffs-study-finds-e254ed2e

Read the full transcript of Carney’s speech to World Economic Forum

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260119-what-is-eu-anti-coercion-instrument-could-use-against-us-over-trump-greenland-tariffs

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/03/trump-national-security-greenland-spheres-of-interest/685673/

https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/what-a-break-with-europe-means-for-the-american-economy-8b5d746e

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-triggers-25th-amendment-calls-after-29-posts-in-20-minutes/

YouTube:

watch?v=jM4HPIhsM5g

Truth Social:

@realDonaldTrump/posts/115928298272082931

@realDonaldTrump/posts/115926002154803646

Bluesky:

thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mcu7ybfmns2g

atrupar.com/post/3mcuwjpqeq326

atrupar.com/post/3mcutsixg6s2q

atrupar.com/post/3mcuxdwukkl2q

steadystatevets.bsky.social/post/3mcuvaz3nq227

meidastouch.com/post/3mctigr6ois2u

broadwaybabyto.bsky.social/post/3mctpb2r6wc2g

osinttechnical.bsky.social/post/3mctmeala7s27

drdind.bsky.social/post/3mcugdt7ch22y

atrupar.com/post/3mctiy7zv7226

onestpress.onestnetwork.com/post/3mcucdifwy22g

atrupar.com/post/3mcub2hqi6c26

paleofuture.bsky.social/post/3mcul6vd6ec2b

Categories Insane, Trump

WSJ: New Study Shows That U.S. Consumers Pay Tariffs, Not Other Nations

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2026 //
2

The Wall Street Journal gave front-page coverage to this new study, which concludes that American consumers are paying for Trump’s tariffs. This is a direct refutation of Trump’s claims that other nations are paying to access American markets, that the trillions collected for tariffs will eventually replace income taxes and pay for all the government’s expenses.

Guess who is paying for tariffs? We are!

FRANKFURT—Americans, not foreigners, are bearing almost the entire cost of U.S. tariffs, according to new research that contradicts a key claim by President Trump and suggests he might have a weaker hand in a reemerging trade war with Europe.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that his historic tariffs, deployed aggressively over the past year as both a revenue-raising and foreign-policy tool, will be paid for by foreigners. Such assertions helped to reinforce the president’s bargaining power and encourage foreign governments to do deals with the U.S.

A relatively brisk growth and moderate inflation last year, even as growth in Europe and other advanced economies remained sluggish.

The new research, published Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a well-regarded German think tank, suggests that the impact of tariffs is likely to show up over time in the form of higher U.S. consumer prices.

The findings don’t mean that the tariffs are a win for Europe—on the contrary. German exports to the U.S., which have rocketed in recent years, have contracted sharply in the past year.

The German research echoes recent reports by the Budget Lab at Yale and economists at Harvard Business School, finding that only a small fraction of the tariff costs were being borne by foreign producers.

By analyzing $4 trillion of shipments between January 2024 and November 2025, the Kiel Institute researchers found that foreign exporters absorbed only about 4% of the qpart burden of last year’s U.S. tariff increases by lowering their prices, while American consumers and importers absorbed 96%.

Categories Economy, Trump

James Fallows: A Primer on Greenland

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2026 //
3

James Fallows is a veteran journalist who has published widely and was a regular columnist for The Atlantic. Early on in his career, he was chief speechwriter for President Carter.

He visited Greenland in the past year and has some sage thoughts about the idiocy of trying to seize it.

He wrote on his Substack blog:

This morning on Fox, two well-matched intellects: Maria Bartiromo and Ted Cruz. Next to them is a Fox-produced map making Greenland look bigger than China, which in reality is more than four times its size. And on a par with the whole of Africa, which in fact is nearly 15 times as large. Fox is famous as the main source of real-time intel for the person who has assumed one-man control of US military, economic, and diplomatic relations with the world. What could go wrong?

This post includes a reprise of some previous items on Greenland, especially from this post one week ago. But as news has evolved, and as the insane idea of taking over Greenland has moved closer to alliance-destroying “reality,” and as a handy one-place guide to the main issues, I offer this update:

I’m not expert on Greenland. But at least I’ve been there, last spring for nearly a week. Which is a week more than the current US President, his Secretary of State (who is also his National Security Advisor), or his Secretary of Defense can claim, among them. And I’ve been reading about the place, and asking people about it, before that and ever since. Which I doubt any of them have done.

Here are my main suggestions if you find yourself in a “Wow, this Greenland situation, what do you think??” conversation any time soon.

1) This crisis is all coming from someone’s gut. Not from anyone’s brain.

Maybe you want to keep this to yourself, rather than leading with it in the conversation. But it’s worth knowing: Does the Trump-era obsession with Greenland seem completely irrational? That’s because it is—as no less an authority than Trump himself has told us.

The most self-aware part of Trump’s recent hours-long gabfest with NY Times reporters, and among the most self-damaging, was the “why Greenland?” exchange.

The Times team didn’t put it exactly this way, but the implied setup for their question was: With brutal war ongoing in Ukraine, with carnage in Gaza, with regime change in Venezuela, with upheaval in Iran, with federal troops occupying major cities, with tariffs upending world economies, and so on, why on Earth are you even talking about Greenland?

Here’s how the Q-and-A played out, with emphasis by me.

David Sanger [NYT]: Why is ownership [of Greenland] important here?

Trump: Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success…. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document…

Katie Rogers [NYT]: Psychologically important to you, or to the United States?

Trump: Psychologically important for me. Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far I’ve been right about everything.

Give Trump credit, this one time, for honesty. Give him demerits on every other count. What he’s doing to all the rest of us is crazy. But, in a moment like Tony Soprano on the psychiatrist’s couch with Dr. Melfi, he’s looking into himself and seeing a deeper truth.

Because the feeling of ownership is “psychologically important” for this one damaged man, the US is throwing alliances and interests built over centuries into a bonfire. Great. But not what Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson had in mind.

2) The US has nothing to gain by ‘owning’ Greenland. Zero.

Actually less than zero, into the negative range.
The military bases the US might want, to patrol activity over the Arctic? Especially as melting ice opens more sea lanes? We already have treaty rights to operate as many bases as we could want.

The Chinese and Russian boats allegedly crowding the waters around Greenland? Bullshit. Check out MarineTraffic.com, VesselFinder.com, ShipFinder.co, etc (the rough maritime counterparts of FlightAware and ADSB-Exchange in aviation) to see for yourself.

The “rare earths” that are so prized? As mentioned before, the “mining” terrain in Greenland is about as challenging as any in the world. Even as glaciers melt at a quickening pace, the average thickness of the ice cap over Greenland is more than one mile. There are simply no roads in the country—none, at all—to connect potential mining sites with ports.
What you see in Greenland, apart from tiny settlements on the coast, is ice. Melting ice, yes.

But still a stupendous amount of it. Rare earth miners may eventually go to work there. But it will be a very long time. And the US doesn’t need to “own” this territory to buy their output. If and when there is any.

And this is not even to get into all the burden of maintaining Greenland, if the US took it over. Health care. Education. Food. Transport to remote locations. Adjudicating indigenous rights versus those of the central government.

People in the US grumble about the challenges of remote rural locations. This is on an entirely different scale.

Denmark already has agreed to open Greenland to every security and economic ambition the US might have. And meanwhile, Denmark is juggling all the challenges of this semi-autonomous state.
One man’s sense of what is “psychologically important, to me” might matter to him. It should matter less to us, than Tony Soprano’s did to his mob.

3) No one wants us there. Zero.

Greenlanders have complex feelings about their “mother” country, Denmark. The ties are deep. So are the desires for independence. Greenland is self-governing, and has its own flag, its own culture, its own ambitions—as we heard from everyone we met. But nearly everyone we met had studied in Denmark, and spoke Danish, and had relatives there.

That’s complicated. By contrast, the view of US takeover is simple. No!

There is more but you half to open the post and subscribe to finish it.

Categories International, Stupid, Trump

Massachusetts Rebuffs RFK Jr., Adopts Its Own Vaccination Schedule for Kids

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2026 //
0

When Trump selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the nation’s leading source of research and policy about health, many critics worried that Kennedy’s adherence to conspiracy theories about vaccines would cloud his judgment.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Bill Cassidy–a medical doctor–asked Kennedy if he would promise that he would not apply his personal views to the vaccine schedule. Kennedy promised. But, of course, once he was confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he broke his promise. He fired all the members of his advisory committee on vaccines and replaced them with his own choices.

Recently Kennedy released a new childhood vaccine schedule, which eliminated some vaccines that had been standard. Organizations of medical professionals were aghast. Until now, guidance from the HHS and Centers for Disease Control were reliable sources for guidance.

Many states responded to Kennedy’s bad advice by determining to ignore the federal recommendations and make their own decisions.

The Boston Globe reported:

Governor Maura Healey released new guidance on childhood vaccinations Wednesday, countering Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent overhaul of the schedule. 

On Jan. 5, the Trump administration reduced the number of vaccinations it recommends for all children, framing the decision as a way to increase public trust by backing only the most important shots.

Unlike the federal government, Massachusetts continues to recommend that every child receive inoculations for hepatitis B, rotavirus, flu, COVID, and RSV, following guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics. Under Kennedy, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends these shots only for children at high risk or when doctors encourage them in what’s called “shared decision-making,” in which doctors and patients collaborate on treatment decisions. 

Insurance will continue to cover all vaccinations for children. 

The federal rollback caused outrage among doctors and health authorities, mainly because it came amid a particularly deadly flu season. The flu has killed 66 people in Massachusetts so far this season, including four children, double the number of deaths reported at this time last year. 

The federal changes came without any new evidence casting doubt on the decades of data showing vaccines for children are safe and effective.

“The decision to change CDC’s childhood immunization schedule is reckless and deeply dangerous,” said Dr. Robbie Goldstein, the state public health commissioner, in a statement Wednesday. “It replaces decades of transparent, evidence-based guidance with uncertainty.”

Categories Education Reform

My No-Good, Horrible Year!

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2026 //
50

Hail and farewell, 2025!

Before that year is entirely forgotten, I want to say that it was one of the worst years in my life.

I learned in college that a sample of 1 is not useful for science, but it means plenty to me.

A year ago, a monstrous, lying braggart was sworn into office. A grifter and conman returned to fill his pockets and those of his family and friends, to double his net worth and to accept emoluments from foreign countries, send armed men to inflict brutality on blue cities, disregarding the Constitution.

In only one year, he has shredded our nation’s standing in the world, inflicted terror on our cities, alienated our allies, abandoned efforts to improve the environment, attacked our schools and universities, gloried in bigotry, and devastated the federal civil service.

He sends federal agents or the National Guard into urban districts, to terrorize the residents. People are snatched from their cars, their workplaces, the streets, even as they protest that they are citizens, that they have rights, that they want a lawyer. Their protests are ignored as a pack of masked men grab them, handcuff them, throw them to the ground, punch and kick them in their heads and bodies. Some are detained and disappeared into a network of prisons, then deported without due process. Some are imprisoned for days or weeks, then released.

Is this America? Never in my life have I been stopped by military officers and asked for my papers,

The cold-blooded murder of Renee Good was followed not by an investigation or apology but by smearing her and her wife as terrorists who were somehow responsible for her fate and deserved to die.

Who are these masked men? Why are they so violent? Are they Proud Boys? KKK? J6 insurrectionists?

Every day, I wonder if this is how decent Germans felt as Hitler took power and destroyed civil society.

What is happening to my country? To our Constitution? To the rule of law?

As I watch our values and rights degraded by power-mad politicians, I fight to preserve my body.

In the spring, I learned after my annual mammogram that I had breast cancer. I learned that I had invasive ductal cancer in my right breast, which required surgery. The post-surgery analysis revealed that not all the cancer was removed. The “margins” were not clear. So back I went for another surgery on the same site.

Radiation–five straight days of it–followed. it left me tired, but otherwise apparently successful.

I was reluctant to take a daily pill of anti-cancer medicine because of the numerous side effects. But I did and I suffered the predicted side effects. I had pain in my hips and joints. That was November.

Meanwhile I had a new mammogram. It showed that I had a new cancer, this time in my left breast. The surgeon recommended another surgery, and this time she got it all out. It was a tiny tumor, different from the first one. But a cancer nonetheless.

Radiation begins today, January 20, the first anniversary of Trump’s return to office. What a coincidence, cancer in my body, cancer in our nation.

It has been a nightmare year, for the country and for me personally. To make matters worse, our beloved dog Mitzi died. Through all of the personal trauma, my wife Mary stood by me steadfastly, through thick and thin, demonstrating her determination and love.

In a few weeks, we expect to get another dog. We will survive.

It remains to be seen whether our country will survive a second Trump term, another round of brutality inflicted on our norms, our values, our fellow citizens and our neighbors, our faith in our electoral system and our laws.

Categories Bigotry, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

Houston: Students and Teachers Flee HISD After State Takeover and Top-Down Reforms

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2026 //
2

In 2023, the state of Texas took control of the Houston Independent School District because of an absurd state law that allows a state takeover of an entire district if only one school is “failing” for five years. In Houston, that one school was Phyllis Wheatley High Schol, which had disproportionately high numbers of students with disabilities, English language learners, and impoverished students. Wheatley was improving, but not enough to avert the takeover.

HISD went to court to block the takeover by the state, but eventually lost in 2023.

The State ousted the board and installed a new superintendent, former military officer Mike Miles, who had had a rocky tenure as superintendent in Dallas (teachers left in droves in response to Miles’ autocratic style.) Miles also started charter schools.

Miles imposed a standardized “New Education System” and ousted experienced (but noncompliant) principals.

A new study conducted by the Educatuon Research Center at the University of Houston found that a significant number of students and teachers had left the district since the state takeover. The beneficiaries of this exodus were charter schools–especially YES Prep and KIPP–and nearby school districts.

HISD enrolls about 168,400 students this year. It has lost 13,000 students since the takeover in 2023. Enrollment is growing in other districts, not declining.

Loss of enrollment means loss of state and federal funding.

The biggest enrollment losses occurred in schools closely implementing Mike Miles’ mandates. Researchers “found that campuses strictly implementing reforms lost more students. Certain magnet and specialty program schools with more autonomy gained students.”

Researchers said that this exodus from public schools to charter schools did not happen statewide.

The exodus of experienced teachers has led to a sharp increase in first-year teachers and uncertified teachers. The number of first-year teachers increased by 562 teachers, or 64.7%, since the takeover, according to the UH research center…

Area school districts and charters are hiring more HISD teachers after the first year of the takeover than they did previously, according to the report. Fort Bend ISD hired the most former HISD teachers, bringing on 207. Katy ISD ranked second in 2024–25, followed by Cypress-Fairbanks ISD.

The share of uncertified teachers in HISD’s teacher workforce increased to nearly 20% in 2024-25, even though research shows certified and experienced teachers improves student success.

Templeton said there is a trend of relying more on uncertified teachers statewide, but not to the extent seen in HISD.

“The increase in uncertified teachers and the increase of novice teachers … that increase was greater in HISD than the other districts surrounding it,” Templeton said.

Teacher turnover soared in Dallas when Mike Miles became Superintendent. In his first year, he ruled as an autocrat, and nearly 1,000 teachers quit. Over his three years, the rate of teacher resignations increased from the low teens to about 22% annually.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Houston, State Takeover, Students, Teachers

Peter Greene: No Accountability for Cybercharters in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2026 //
3

The deal with charters, we are frequently told, is a trade of autonomy for accountability. Let charters do things their own way, charter fans say. If they can’t produce, then shut them down. Hold them accountable.

Except somehow the accountability parts keeps not happening, as in North Carolina, where a couple of failing cyber charters have been renewed despite their continued failure to produce results.

North Carolina Cyber Academy and North Carolina Virtual Academy opened in 2015, the state’s first two cyber charters. That was just a year before the charter school industry itself issued a blistering report about the many ways in which cyber charters fail students and families. That’s the same year that charter-friendly CREDO issued a report indicating that students in cyber charters might as well just take a year-long nap. And of course it is five years before the nation launched the biggest experiment ever in distance learning and found that pretty much nobody was a fan.

NCVA appears to be actually operated by Stride (formerly K-12), a cyber charter business that has a list several miles long of misadventures and misbehaviors, much as one would expect from a business that is centered on making money and not all that interested in educating young humans. 

The two schools have underperformed, scoring straight D’s on the state’s evaluation system (NCVA did better than a D in 2023, the only time either school did so). North Carolina’s Charter Schools Review Board mostly didn’t seem to care as they renewed the two schools for another five years. As reported by T. Keung Hui for the Herald-Sun

“We’re renewing two schools for five years that have been continually low performing for all 10 years and have not met growth, except one school for one year, and yet the enrollment is almost 2,500 in one and 4,000,” said Rita Haire, a Review Board member. “Do they not understand the quality of education that’s being delivered?”

Much like cyber charters in Pennsylvania, the two North Carolina cybers are sitting on a huge pile of taxpayer dollars—  $16 million at Virtual Academy and $9.7 million at Cyber Academy. Maybe, some board members observed, that money could be spent on making the educational program results suck less (I’m paraphrasing). 

Bruce Friend is chair of the review board, runs a virtual academy of his own, and thinks cyber charters are just awesome. He says that the schools draw students who “transition” in and out through the year, which is why many states use them as alternative schools. I’m not sure which states he’s talking about, but at any rate, when he was cheerleading for North Carolina to get on the cyber charter train, his pitch was that flexibility and personalized education and building confidence. Nothing about a holding pen for students “transitioning” in and out. That’s a version of a standard cyber charter argument, which is that cybers get a disproportionate share of students who are already in academic trouble and come to cybers already behind the curve. I expect there is some truth to that, but if that is the cyber charter customer base, and they know it’s their customer base, why have they not gotten any better at educating those students? 

The Herald-Sun asked both cybers to offer a response. NCVA hasn’t so far (which is on brand for Stride), but NCCA chief Martez Hill said that it’s great to be renewed. His only offer to push back on the perception that they aren’t doing a great job is to note that NCCA has graduated more than 1,000 students in the last five years. This is no great achievement, since NCCA can graduate anyone they want to graduate. 

The board apparently doesn’t have a lot of flexibility. One member complained that they would pick apart the pieces of a bricks and mortar charter to hold them accountable, but can’t do that with the cybers. They also have no flexibility to, say, renew for only two or three years, but either had to okay a five year renewal or none at all.

None at all seems like the correct choice here, but that’s not how seven of the ten-member board saw it, so North Carolina taxpayers get another five years of not-particularly-effective cyber chartering with no real accountability and no reason to think these charters will do any better in the next five years than they have in the previous ten. But at least they’ll have autonomy

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Failure, North Carolina, Online Education

Snopes: Claim by Vance and Noem that ICE Agent Fired in Self-Defense Rated “Fake”

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2026 //
4

SNOPES, the fact-checking site, reviewed claims that the ICE agent who killed Renee Good acted in self-defense because she was trying to run him over.

SNOPES determined that the basis of this claim was an AI-generated video that contained multiple indicators of being a fake.

It determined:

Rating: Fake 

After a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, 37, in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2026, social media users shared an image appearing to show Good’s car aimed toward and about to hit the officer.

The image spread on social media platforms such as Reddit and X. “Any questions?” one Facebook user posted, apparently assuming the image was authentic. 

However, the image was fake. Using reverse image search tools, we traced it to a post from X user @ScummyMummy511, who acknowledged using artificial intelligence to create it. The AI-generated depiction also did not match the scene shown in multiple credible videos and photos of the shooting, further proving it wasn’t authentic.  

Multiple credible analyses of videos from the shooting contradicted claims that Good was attempting to run over the officer and found that the wheels of her vehicle were turned away from him right before the shooting. (After a Minnesota news outlet released the agent’s own cellphone video on Jan. 9, Vice President JD Vance was among officials who said the footage showed he had fired his gun in self-defense.)

But Good did not try to run him over. The officer fired three shots, two of which struck her in the chest, a third in the arm. None of those shots were necessary. The ICE officer did not fire his gun in self-defense. And the Department of Justice will not investigate the killing, contrary to standard policy. Half a dozen investigators in the Civil Rughts Division of the Justice Depsrtnent resigned to protest the decision not to investigate.

Categories Education Reform
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