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Peter Greene on a Bill to Ban Federal Funding of For-Profit Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2024 //
6

Peter Greene wrote in Forbes about a bill just introduced in the House of Representatives to ban federal funding of for-profit charters. He explains how some ostensibly non-profit charters are actually managed by for-profits. Will Congress have the gumption to stop profiteering in charter world? Expect fierce opposition from the charter lobby. Bottom line: charter schools claim to be “public schools.” Public schools do not operate for profit.

He begins:

In almost every corner of the U.S., charter schools are non-profit. And yet, there are numerous ways to run a non-profit for profit.

In two reports (Chartered for Profit and Chartered for Profit II), the Network for Public Education showed numerous examples of the most common techniques. Some charters lease their buildings back from related businesses. In one New York case, a chartering organization leased a space from the diocese, then leased that space to its own charter school for over ten times the amount it was paying.

There are “sweeps” contracts, where a non-profit charter hires a for-profit management organization to handle everything, in return for nearly every dollar the charter takes in. As one EMO contract cited in the report states, it receives “as renumeration for its services an amount equal to the total revenue received” by the school “from all revenue sources.”

In many cases, a non-profit charter school simply serves as a pass through for money headed to a for-profit business.

Why be concerned? Because every dollar spent on students is a dollar that the company doesn’t get to keep. Every dollar that makes it into the classroom doesn’t make it into the company’s pocket. When profit-making businesses provide human services, there is a conflict of interest between the company and its customers.

Don’t public school districts use for-profit contractors? They do, particularly for big ticket items such as for preparation and bus service. But those contracts are overseen and approved by elected school board members who are responsible for looking after the interests of the students, not the vendors. Nor do public schools contract with vendors to conduct the main business of the school.

To address the issue of charter schools operated for a profit, United States Representative Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) and Representative Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01) this month introduced the Championing Honest and Responsible Transparency in Education Reform (CHARTER) Act. Said DeLauro,

The CHARTER Act would ensure that for-profit education management organizations can no longer jump through loopholes that have given them access to funding that has always been intended for nonprofit entities. Educating our children should be for their enrichment and future prosperity – not to maximize the profits of their owners and investors.

The bill adds to the definition of a charter school given in Section 4310 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. In addition to the other qualifiers already in the federal definition of a charter school, the bill would add that a charter school

does not enter into a contract with a for-profit entity, or have a charter management organization or other nonprofit entity enter into such a contract on behalf of such school, under which the for-profit entity operates, oversees, manages, or otherwise carries out the administration of such school, which may include curriculum development, budget management, and faculty management (such as hiring, terminating, or supervising school-level staff);

The bill also specifies that a charter school may contract for food, payroll, facilities maintenance, transportation services, classroom supplies or other ancillary services.

The bill then goes on to require the amended definition be used for ESEA and IDEA, thereby blocking charters that don’t meet the amended definition from receiving any federal funds.

The issue of charters operated for profit has been addressed before, when the Biden administration tightened rules governing the Charter School Program grants handed out by the federal government. Those changes required charters to be more transparent about where the money was going, and the grantee had to offer assurances that a for-profit CMO “does not exercise full or substantial control” over the school.

If the CHARTER Act gains traction in Congress, it will continue this trend of seeking greater assurance that federal dollars sent to charter schools will find their way to the classroom, and not some for-profit company’s bank account.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Courage, Education Industry, For-Profit

Florida: Textbook Authors Told to Delete References to Climate Change

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2024 //
21

Leslie Postal of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Florida’s Department of Education has warned textbook authors to delete references to climate change, although some apparently are getting through. This is especially egregious since Florida is one of the states most threatened by climate change.

She writes:

Textbook authors were told last month that some references to “climate change” must be removed from science books before they could be accepted for use in Florida’s public schools, according to two of those authors.

A high school biology book also had to add citations to back up statements that “human activity” caused climate change and cut a “political statement” urging governments to take action to stop climate change, said Ken Miller, the co-author of that textbook and a professor emeritus of biology at Brown University.

Both Miller and a second author who asked not to be identified told the Orlando Sentinel they learned of the state-directed changes from their publishers, who received phone calls in June from state officials.

Miller, also president of the board of the National Center for Science Education, said the phrase “climate change” was not removed from his high school biology text, which he assumed happened because climate change is mentioned in Florida’s academic standards for biology courses. [Note: The state standards for science were adopted in 2008, before DeSantis was elected Governor.]

But according to his publisher, a 90-page section on climate change was removed from its high school chemistry textbook and the phrase was removed from middle school science books, he said.

The other author said he was told Florida wanted publishers to remove “extraneous information” not listed in state standards. “They asked to take out phrases such as climate change,” he added.

The actions seemed to echo Florida’s previous rejection of math and social studies textbooks that state officials claimed include passages of “indoctrination” and “ideological rhetoric.” And they fall in line with the views of many GOP leaders, who question both the existence of climate change and the contributions of human activities to the problem, despite a broad scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is transforming the earth’s environment.

In May, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that stripped the phrase “climate change” from much of Florida law, reversing 16 years of state policy and, critics said, undermining Florida’s support of renewable and clean energy…

But there are no textbooks for high school environmental science classes on the approved list, though three companies submitted bids to supply books for that class, according to documents on the department’s website. Course material for that subject typically includes significant discussion of climate change.

“How do you write an environmental science book to appease people who are opposed to climate change?” asked a school district science supervisor, who is involved in science textbook adoption for her district. She asked not to be identified for fear of job repercussions.

She and other educators, the textbook authors and science advocates said the state’s actions will rob students of a deeper understanding of global warming even as it impacts their state and communities through longer and hotter heat waves, more ferocious storms and sea level rise.

Florida had already earned a D — and was among the five lowest-ranked states in the country — in a 2020 study that graded the states on how their public school science standards addressed climate change, said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the center for science education, which was a partner in the study.

Is there a grade lower than F? F-?

Categories Censorship, DeSantis, Extremism, Florida, Science, Stupid

Robert Hubbell: Joe Biden Is Running to Protect Democracy Against Tyranny

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2024 //
137

Robert Hubbell writes a blog about the travails of politics. I have excerpted a small portion of his post. Please open the link to read in full.

Hubbell writes:

The 2024 election is not merely a choice between Biden and Trump. It is a choice between democracy and tyranny, liberty and subjugation, dignity and debasement, safety and mayhem, global stability and chaos, climate crisis mitigation or acceleration, retirement security and insecurity, justice and vengeance, science and ignorance, decency and depravity. If we cannot convince voters that the choice comes down to those polar opposites, it does not matter who the candidate is.

I support Joe Biden because he is a great president, a good and decent man, and a skilled politician who achieved great things with bare majorities in the House and Senate. His performance in the debate does not define him. I believe Joe Biden is the best candidate to defeat Trump. If he is forced out by a media-driven frenzy and a cabal of unnamed insiders and pundits, it will be the greatest miscalculation and tragedy in American politics in a century.

I am not giving up and I won’t be pressured into apologizing for Joe Biden’s imperfections in a world where every politician is imperfect. Shadowboxing with unnamed party insiders and pundits is a waste of time. We have real work to do. Let’s get to it!

Categories Accountability, Biden, Character, Elections, Environment, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Republicans Continue Efforts to Cripple Federal Government

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2024 //
31

Heather Cox Richardson wrote today about two concurrent stories: on one hand, Democrats are locked in an internecine battle about their candidate; on the other, the Trump-dominated Supreme Court is shredding the balance of powers and crippling the administrative authority of the federal government.

She writes:

In this morning’s Talking Points Memo, David Kurtz observed that “much of political journalism is divorced from policy and the substance of politics.” It’s all about a horse race, he wrote, while complex questions, competing public interests, and the history of an issue get distilled to “whether it’s good or bad politically.”

Today, he noted, that horse-race coverage means that “[a]n election about whether the United States will continue its two and half century long experiment in representative democracy, where a convicted felon is running to return to the office he tried to seize through extralegal means, where the specter of a new form of fascism looms on the horizon is suddenly consumed by a political death watch for the only person at present standing between democracy and another Trump term in the White House.”

Yesterday, President Joe Biden tried to quell that political death watch by sending a letter to congressional Democrats stating that “despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump.” He noted that 14 million voters in the Democratic primary chose him, rather than a challenger, adding, “It was their decision to make. Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well intentioned…. How can we stand for democracy in our nation if we ignore it in our own party?” 

In an apparent attempt to get beyond the horse-race politics Kurtz identified and to make clear the substance of this election, Biden explained: “We have an historic record of success to run on.” He cited his administration’s creation of more than 15 million jobs, leading to historic unemployment lows; revitalization of American manufacturing; expansion of affordable health care; rebuilding the country’s infrastructure; lowering the cost of prescription drugs; providing student debt relief; and making a historic investment in combating climate change.

That vision, Biden wrote, “soundly beats” that of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, who are “siding with the wealthy and big corporations,” while the Democrats are “siding with the working people of America.” Trump and his people want another $5 trillion in tax cuts for the rich, he noted, and they plan to cut Social Security and Medicare, as well as end the ability of the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to bring drug prices into line with prices in other countries. “We are the ones lowering costs for families,” he wrote, “from health care to prescription drugs to student debt to housing. We are the ones protecting Social Security and Medicare. Everything they’re proposing raises costs for most Americans—except their tax cuts which will go to the rich.” 

He went on to note that the Democrats are “protecting the freedoms of Americans,” while Trump’s people are “taking them away.” He pointed to the right-wing attacks on abortion rights, IVF, contraception, and gay marriage. Biden reiterated that he will sign a law making Roe v. Wade the law of the land if the nation elects a Democratic House and Senate. Finally, he pointed out that Democrats are protecting the rule of law and democracy, while Trump is actively working to destroy both. Trump, he wrote, has proven himself “unfit ever to hold the office of President.” “My fellow Democrats,” Biden wrote, “we have the record, the vision, and the fundamental commitment to America’s freedoms and our Democracy to win.” 

Hours later, the New York Times joined the tabloid New York Post in noting that visitor logs showed that Dr. Kevin Cannard, an expert on Parkinson’s disease, visited the White House eight times between July 2023 and March 2024. After pressing White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for information beyond her statements that Biden is not being, and has not been, treated for Parkinson’s and that he sees a neurologist as part of his annual physical exams, a CBS News White House reporter accused Jean-Pierre of deliberately withholding information. Jean-Pierre pointed out that “personal attacks” are not appropriate from the press corps and that the press team does its best to give the information they have. She said she took offense at the reporter’s tone. 

Last night, White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor sent to Jean-Pierre a letter clarifying that the White House Medical Unit serves thousands of patients, many of whom are military personnel with neurological issues related to their service. Cannard was one of the team of specialists that annually examine the president. O’Connor’s office released the results of that examination in a letter dated February 28, he pointed out. It said, “An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy.” The president does have “peripheral neuropathy in both feet. No motor weakness was detected. He exhibits no tremor, either at rest or with activity.”

As media attention remains focused on Biden, a Supreme Court decision from last week that upends the modern American state and another that overturns the central concept of our democracy have disappeared from public discussion. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the court overruled the longstanding legal precedent establishing that courts should defer to a government agency’s reasonable interpretation of a law. Instead, it said, judges themselves will decide on the legality of an agency’s actions. 

In Public Notice, Lisa Needham noted that right-wing judges have already blocked Biden administration rules that protect overtime pay for workers, prohibit noncompete clauses for truckers, and prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. As right-wing plaintiffs launch suits challenging rules they dislike, she notes, we should expect to see many more federal judges “deploying junk science and personal opinions to get to their preferred conclusion while ignoring the expertise of agency employees.”

Loper Bright was a slashing blow at the federal regulations that make up the framework of today’s government, but it paled in comparison to the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States. In that stunning decision, the six right-wing justices—three of whom Trump himself appointed—declared that a president is immune from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his “official duties.” 

This astonishing decision overturned the bedrock principle of the United States of America: that no one is above the law. But to be clear, the court did not give this power to Biden. Because it is not clear what official acts are—since no one has ever before made this distinction—it claimed for itself the right to decide what illegal behaviors are official acts and which are not. Since at least one of the justices (Samuel Alito) has flown flags demonstrating support for overthrowing Biden’s government and putting Trump back into office, and the wife of another (Clarence Thomas) worked with those trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, it seems likely that their decisions will reinforce Trump’s immunity alone. 

An extraordinary effort to use the courts to set up a Trump dictatorship appears largely to have been hidden under the horse race.

And now that this scaffolding is in place, Trump’s team has begun to try to make him look more moderate than he is. On July 5, Trump claimed not to know anything about the extremist Project 2025, which calls for an authoritarian leader to impose Christian nationalism on the United States, despite the fact that his own appointees wrote it, his own political action committee advertised it as his plan, and his name appears in it 312 times. 

Agenda 47, the official Trump campaign website, has offered more information about how he will wield the absolute power he now claims. As Judd Legum pointed out today in Popular Information, a key author of Project 2025, Christian nationalist Russell Vought, has advanced a plan for killing any aspects of government his people dislike, and Trump has adopted that plan, vowing to cancel agencies or laws he dislikes by refusing to spend money Congress appropriates. This is known as “impoundment,” and Congress made it illegal in 1974 after President Richard Nixon used it to try to bend the government to his will. Trump says the 1974 Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional because it interferes with the power of the presidency. He promised to use it to “crush the Deep State.” First on the chopping block will be the Department of Education.  

The effort to make Trump sound more moderate continued yesterday, when the Republican National Committee released the party’s 2024 platform, in which it tried to fudge the issue of abortion while leaving language that supported a national abortion ban. The New York Timespublished an article reinforcing the idea that Trump is moderating, reporting: “Following Trump’s Lead, Republicans Adopt Platform That Softens Stance on Abortion.” 

In the midst of this political coverage, a key story has been largely overlooked. Not only does the stock market continue to set record highs, but also, as Jim Tankersley of the New York Timesreported, the so-called left-behind counties, distressed after the collapse of manufacturing in them, have “added jobs and new businesses at their fastest pace since Bill Clinton was president.” “That turnaround,” he notes, “has shocked experts.” More than 1,000 counties, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest, that grew at less than half the national rate in terms of both people and income from 2000 to 2016, have surged. From 2016 to 2019—mostly during Trump’s administration—those rural left-behind counties, which make up about 18% of the U.S. population, added 10,000 jobs. In 2023 alone, they added 104,000. 

Tankersley notes that Trump overwhelmingly won the support of voters in these counties, but their circumstances did not improve during his administration. Under Biden, they added jobs five times faster than they did under Trump. Still, voters there appear to continue to back Trump. 

Now that’s a story. Are they backing Trump because they care more about culture wars than their economic security? Or are they ill informed?

Meanwhile, Republicans in the House today passed the Refrigerator Freedom Act and the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards (SUDS) Act, prohibiting the Secretary of Energy from prescribing or enforcing energy efficiency standards for residential refrigerators, freezers, and dishwashers. 

After noting that the average monthly cost of operating a dishwasher is two to four dollars, and establishing that the people pushing this measure had no idea how much a dishwasher costs, Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) said: “This bill… Congress at its worst. A bunch of people who haven’t unloaded a dishwasher ever telling the American people what dishwashers they should or should not have.” 

Categories Biden, Democracy, Democrats, Disruption, Elections, Environment, Ethics, Extremism, Injustice, Republicans, Trump

Jim Hightower: We Can’t Let the Supreme Court Destroy Our Democracy

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2024 //
30

Jim Hightower, activist Democrat and former elected official in Texas, says it’s time for “Do-It-Yourself Democracy.” We can’t sit back and let Trump’s Supreme Court whittle away our rights and laws.

He writes:

It’s July 4th week!

Sure, do a few 12-ounce elbow bends and set off some sparklers in celebration of our people’s democratic values. But wait – why are we celebrating the Spirit of ‘76, but meekly accepting the recent tsunami of autocratic, plutocratic dictates from a sextet of extremist, right-wing, partisan lawyers? 

These six unelected Republicans, put on the Supreme Court by a tiny group of billionaire-funded political operatives, are routinely imposing their anti-woman, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-worker, anti-environment, theocratic agendas on the vast majority of us who want none of the above.

Start with the fact that they are liars. Each one duped senators into giving lifetime appointments to them by loudly promising that they would never even consider rewriting the fundamental laws and legal precedents that form the egalitarian fabric of American society. Nor, each insisted, would they ever dream of being a part of a cabal working to turn the judicial branch into a repressive force routinely eliminating democratic power in order to erect a government of-by-and-for right-wing elites.

Then they proceeded, case-by-case, to do exactly what they swore on their honor they would not do. And now, with yesterday’s Trump v. United States edict, the six have haughtily attempted to rewrite the Constitution and 248 years of our People’s history by proclaiming, on their own whim, that America has an imperial presidency with executive authority to act with impunity.

We the People do not have to put up with their imperious crap. 

They’ve turned the Supreme Court into a political operation – so it’s the duty of us grassroots democracy champions to fight their usurpation, not only in the presidential race, but carrying the fight into every political forum. Don’t wait on national “leaders” – they lack the guts for standing up to runaway power. 

And while no individual can fix our democracy, a movement can. I think of a small hardware store here in Austin that had a can-do attitude, offering to help customers handle even the biggest tasks. The store’s slogan was “Together, we can do it yourself.” 

We’re collecting actions that grassroots people can take, and are collaborating with longtime friends and allies to light a fire under the butts of Democratic Party leaders. We’ll keep you updated on those efforts, but to start, here are two groups to join up with.

Share

Demand Justice has been advocating for the Judiciary Act, which would expand the court by four seats. They’re asking people to call their representatives, and to join their rapid response team. 

We’ve long been a fan of Lisa Graves (you can watch our 2022 Chat ‘n’ Chew episode with her here), and she’s teamed up with the folks at Court Accountability for a new round of intense actions called Justice Can’t Wait. They’ve shared with us a list of things you can do:

  • Share the Justice Can’t Wait updatedwebsite.
  • Raise awareness of the seeds being planted by Trump and his allies to deny the results of the 2024 election if it doesn’t go their way. Trump has refused to commit to accepting legitimate election results if he does not win, and his allies are laying the groundwork for election denial through lawsuits and false claims about election fraud.
  • Urge Congress to pass reforms clarifying the Insurrection Act, which Trump plans to invoke to deploy the military against the American people, on his first day in office.
  • Share Stand Up America’s Supreme Court Voter website, which aims to educate and mobilize voters on the impact the next president will have on the future of the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • Educate Americans on the economicthreats that the extremist Project 2025 poses. Economic concerns “consistently rank as top issues among likely voters,” and people need to understand the likely consequences and chaos for our economy and American families if Project 2025 affiliates are able to carry out their dangerous agenda.
  • Join United for Democracy in calling on Congress to rein in the out-of-control Supreme Court.
  • Drive home that this is Trump’s Supreme Court. Trump installed the corporatist majority that has taken away women’s fundamental freedoms and stripped away protections for Americans’ health and safety. Even after Trump led an insurrection, the Court that Trump built is now tipping the scales to help him win again in November and protect him from accountability for his actions.  
  • From the Hightower staff: And let’s not forget how the Supremes view actual bribery: as nothing more than a tip or a token of thanks for a job well done. They’re basically creating loopholes to legalize their own corruption!
Categories Civil Rights, Courage, Democracy, Education Reform, Justice, Trump

Florida Turns Down $259 Million in Federal Funds to Feed Hungry Children

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2024 //
12

The Orlando Sentinel reported that Florida has rejected $259 million in federal funds to feed hungry children. The reasons of the DeSantis administration: we don’t need the money, and besides, it would cost $22 million to administer the program.

TALLAHASSEE– State officials said they passed up millions of dollars in new federal food assistance money because they have more than enough programs to feed Florida’s hungry children this summer.

But advocates for the hungry say the numbers tell a different story.

“The perception put forward by the state is that there is no need for other programs in the state,” said Sky Beard, the Florida director for the non-profit No Kid Hungry organization. “I wish it were true!”

While it’s too late for Florida to change course in time to affect kids this summer, 185 groups that seek to end hunger recently sent a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state leaders urging Florida to apply for the money by the Aug. 15 deadline for 2025.

“Every summer is a hungry time for kids.” Beard said.

One in five children in Florida are experiencing hunger because their families cannot afford enough groceries to make up for the free meals they got at school during the academic year, according to a recent report by Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, pantries and community organizations dedicated to ending hunger.

Fewer than 10% of the 672,324 elementary school children in Florida who get free or reduced-price lunches during the school year receive a summer lunch, says a report by the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit organization working to end poverty-related hunger.

Categories Cruelty, DeSantis, Ethics, Evil, Florida, Injustice

The Case of Shani Robinson, Wrongly Accused of Cheating in Atlanta, Is Finally Resolved

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2024 //
27

In 2009, Atlanta’s school superintendent, Dr. Beverly Hall, was honored by the American Association of School Administrators as National Superintendent of the Year for the city’s amazing progress in the past ten years.

The scores seemed too good to be true for skeptical journalists. So that same year,the Atlanta Journal Constitution analyzed test results in the city’s schools and found some extraordinary gains that seemed improbable. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation launched a probe and released a report in July 2011 claiming that there was cheating in 44 out of 56 schools. The GBI charged 178 educators with changing answers to raise scores.

Dr. Hall was charged with multiple crimes in 2013. She was accused of putting pressure on teachers to raise scores and creating an atmosphere of intimidation and fear. She never went to trial. She died of cancer in 2015 at the age of 68.

Ultimately 35 educators were indicted and punished with jail time, fines or both. Twelve educators refused a plea deal, insisting on their innocence. Using the RICO statute, intended for racketeering, District Attorney Fani Willis continued to prosecute the 12 holdouts.

One of them, Shani Robinson, wrote a book insisting on her innocence. The book is titled None of the Above. I read the book and was persuaded that she had suffered a grave injustice. Shani was a first-grade teacher. Her students’ scores did not affect the district’s ratings. There were no stakes, no rewards or punishments attached to them.

She was offered a deal: Confess or turn someone else in, and all charges would be dropped. Because Shani refused to do either, she was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison, four years of probation,a fine of $1,000, and 1,000 hours of community service. She believes someone else named her to escape punishment. She has appealed repeatedly and has spent a decade in limbo, worrying about whether she would be sent to prison. Meanwhile, she married and has two children.

I wrote the following posts on her behalf and sent an affidavit to the judge.

In April 2019, I reviewed Shani’s book and became persuaded of her innocence.

In September 2019, I posted a video in which Shani insisted that she was innocent.

In February 2022, at Shani’s request, I wrote a post about my letter to the judge, in which I said,

Shani taught first grade, where the tests have no stakes for students or teachers. She had no motive or reason to cheat. 

I believe she was unjustly prosecuted by overzealous investigators. She could have pleaded guilty or accused others to avoid prosecution but she insisted on her innocence. 

I believe her.

In February 2023, I wrote an update, quoting two Atlanta lawyers who excoriated the prosecution, calling the case “a textbook example of overcriminalization and prosecutorial discretion gone amok…”

In October 2023, Shani wrote an update on the case for my blog.

She wrote:

This RICO indictment has hung over my head for the past 10 years, leading to a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The impact of PTSD and the fallout from the trial has taken a significant toll on my family. I have 2 small children, sothe thought of going to prison and being separated from them is agonizing. There are 6 defendants, including me, still appealing convictions. We’ve all been able to remain out of prison thus far due to being on appeal bonds. But the case has been handled so poorly; the entire appeals process restarted this year with no end in sight. Millions of tax players dollars have already been spent on this trial. 

 Last year brought a ray of hope: Judge Jerry Baxter granted a new sentence for a principal who was convicted, enabling her to avoid prison and do community service instead. I’m hopeful that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and Judge Jerry Baxter will come to the realization that RICO was misused in our case and find a peaceful resolution. 

The long ordeal is finally over.

A few days ago, Shani and the other holdouts arrived at a plea deal. They had to make a public apology to the children of Atlanta, admitting their guilt, in exchange for no prison time. In addition, she is required to pay a fine of $1,000 and give 1,000 hours of community service.

I believe Shani. I believe she is innocent. I think it’s a travesty that she had to admit guilt in order to avoid prison. That was the deal. I wish she could sue the city of Atlanta for destroying her profession and ruining 15 years of her life.

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Cheating, Cruelty, Ethics, Fraud, Georgia, Teachers

Biden Gave Highest Civilian Honor to NATO Leader. Who Did Trump Honor?

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2024 //
11

This afternoon, President Biden gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary-General of NATO.

To whom did Donald Trump give this high honor? Here’s a trip down memory lane.

Robin Acadian of the Los Angeles told this story on January 16, 2021:

Nothing makes sense anymore.

The party of “law and order” just rampaged through the Capitol, bludgeoning a police officer to death and calling for the lynching of the vice president. The party’s leader, President Trump, has pardoned a rogues’ gallery of thieves and murderers. And now, in a last-gasp effort to prove there is nothing that Trump won’t defile, he’s been handing out Medals of Freedom like Chiclets to his unprincipled political acolytes and enablers.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, created by President Kennedy in 1963, was established to recognize individuals who have made an “especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, or world peace, or cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

There have been a few recipients who fell from grace after receiving the medal. Bill Cosby, for example, got one from President George W. Bush in 2002 and was later convicted of aggravated indecent assault. But presidents have generally maintained a high bar, awarding the medal to popes, astronauts, scientists, statesmen, military heroes, thinkers and artists. In 1985, President Reagan gave the award to Mother Teresa.

Then came Trump. Over the course of his tenure, Trump has awarded the medal to 24 civilians, 14 of whom are athletes. He has honored only three women, including golfer Annika Sörenstam; Miriam Adelson, the wife of his largest campaign contributor, the late Sheldon Adelson; and Olympic gold medalist Babe Didrikson Zaharias (who died in 1956).

Trump has used the country’s highest civilian honor to reward his most fervent supporters — angry, divisive partisans like Rush Limbaugh (who coined the term “feminazi”), Rep. Jim “Shouty” Jordan and, of course, his favorite cow-suing congressman, Rep. Devin Nunes.
Just as he has done with the presidency, Trump has debased the Medal of Freedom.

“Everything about Donald Trump screams narcissism, so it’s hardly a surprise he turns the highest civilian award into a tool to reflect his own interests,” said Rob Weissman, president of the government watchdog group Public Citizen. “He gave the Medal of Freedom to individuals for their service to him.”

Exactly. Nunes was cited for uncovering “the greatest scandal in American history” and helping “thwart a plot to take down a sitting United States president.”

“Congressman Nunes,” said the White House announcement, “pursued the Russia Hoax at great personal risk and never stopped standing up for the truth. He had the fortitude to take on the media, the FBI, the Intelligence Community, the Democrat Party, foreign spies, and the full power of the Deep State. Devin paid a price for his courage.”

The price? Columnists wrote mean things about him.

On Sunday, I asked Democratic Rep. Adam B. Schiff how he reacted to Nunes receiving the Medal of Freedom. “I feel like I am living in Alice in Wonderland,” Schiff said. “It grieves me to think about what that means to others who have received the honor.”

Now, I don’t mean to pick on Nunes. … Oh, who am I kidding? Yes, I do.

He has distinguished himself as Congress’ most thin-skinned member, suing for defamation newspapers, magazines, television networks, a fellow congressman, an organic fruit farmer and, of course, the anonymous author of a Twitter account who purports to be a cow. As the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank wrote last March, “That’s a lot of litigation for a guy who co-sponsored the Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act of 2017.”

The other day, Nunes seemed to excuse Trump’s incitement of the crowd that stormed the U.S. Capitol and killed Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. “Look,” he told Sean Hannity, “the president makes a lot of mistakes. All presidents make mistakes.”

Nunes’ unhinged performance during the House’s first impeachment inquiry in 2019 should go down as one of the most bizarre political displays of all time. He showed no interest in Trump’s alleged crimes but continually tried to drag an unknown Democratic National Committee operative named Alexandra Chalupa into the proceedings by implying with absolutely no proof that she’d sabotaged Trump’s 2016 campaign.

He and his colleagues, including most notably his fellow medalist Jordan, tried to out the anonymous whistleblower who first raised concerns about Trump’s phone call with the new president of Ukraine. That was, of course, the call during which Trump asked Volodymyr Zelensky, who wanted Trump to allow the release of nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine, to “do us a favor though” and dig up dirt on Joe Biden.

Trump himself, you’ll recall, had already endangered the safety of the unnamed whistleblower by accusing him of treason. During the impeachment inquiry, Nunes repeatedly tried to get witnesses like Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman to reveal the identity of the whistleblower, a CIA officer who was detailed to the White House.

“It was shocking to see Devin Nunes receiving the medal for his work in the first impeachment and [Russian election interference] investigations,” said Irvin McCullough, a national security analyst who specializes in military and intelligence community whistleblowing for the Government Accountability Project. “How did I react? With a mixture of disgust and disappointment.”

In Trump’s first impeachment, McCullough said, “Republicans just abandoned the bipartisan tradition of whistleblower protection.”
And it hasn’t gotten any better.

In December, Foreign Policy magazine reported, Nunes blocked reforms to the Whistleblower Protection Act that would have strengthened those protections. Among other things, the reforms would have imposed criminal penalties on anyone who shares a whistleblower complaint with the target of an investigation without the whistleblower’s permission (as happened with the complaint about Trump’s Ukraine call), McCullough said.

“Supporting whistleblowers is supporting the safeguards that prevent our democracy from going off the rails,” McCullough added. “Opposing strengthening protections for whistleblowers is the same as opposing oversight. From a national security standpoint, that makes us all less safe.”

I would certainly not lump Nunes in with his fellow medalist Cosby, a serial assaulter of women. But no one should get a Medal of Freedom for assaulting the Constitution, either.

Categories Biden, Shame, Trump

Dan Rather: A Dangerous Double Standard

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2024 //
56

Dan Rather is puzzled about why the media scrutinizes Biden for any misstatements or gaffes and seems to be gleefully stoking the “resign” story. Yet Trump says crazy and incoherent things, and the media ignores it.

He writes on his blog “Steady”:

What a weekend. You know I have seen some things in my seven decades covering American politics. I have never seen anything quite like the wrangling, hand-wringing, and behind-the-scenes gamesmanship currently swirling around President Biden. These are compounded by the one-sided media coverage against Biden. And it isn’t over yet. 

One thing is for certain: If Biden stays in the race, every step, every word, every gesture will be parsed, dissected, and magnified. This is the reality, at least for the Democrats. Trump? Not so much. Or really, very little.

Case in point: On Friday, Biden sat down with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. In the transcript of the interview released by ABC, Biden said, “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.” Several news organizations and the White House took issue with the word “goodest.” According to The New York Times,the ABC standards team listened again to the audio and changed “goodest” to “good as.” According to the Times, “Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.”

So here we are — one slightly hard to discern word in an otherwise coherent interview. And then there is the other guy. The one who can’t seem to string together a single coherent sentence — a fact news organizations don’t even bother mentioning any more. Try making sense of this gobbledegook from Trump’s remarks at a recent rally in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania:

“Our nation was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. The battle of Gettysburg, what an unbelievable. I mean it was so, was so much, and so interesting, and so vicious and horrible, and so beautiful in so many different ways — it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow! I go to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to look and to watch. And uh the statement of Robert E. Lee, who’s no longer in favor — did you ever notice that? He’s no longer in favor. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.’ They were fighting uphill, he said. Wow, that was a big mistake, he lost his great general and uh they were fighting uphill. ‘Never fight uphill, me boys,’ but it was too late.”

What?? You may not have heard about this because it was “lightly” reported, i.e. not a word from The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, or the Associated Press. Jon Stewart did mention it on “The Daily Show,” saying it was “plagiarized, almost directly, from my seventh-grade book report, ‘Gettysburg, Wow.’”

Why are the rules so different for these two men? Both should be held accountable for their deeds and words. But they aren’t. Trump gets pass after pass.

The Republicans have hitched their wagon to a cult leader. They are willing to do just about anything to win back the White House: lie; obliterate the rules; blindly back a convicted felon, a cheater, a sexual assaulter, a Project 2025 promoter, a dictator on day one, and an insurrectionist. Maybe they should change their MAGA caps to say “The ends justify the means.”

The Democrats have, to this point, backed the president, a decent man who has devoted his life to the service of the country. Now that the proverbial chips are somewhere near rock-bottom, the party doesn’t know what to do. Remain loyal to a man who has objectively done a very good job after the debacle that was the Trump administration, and risk Trump 2.0? Or nudge Biden out in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris or any number of untested contenders? The finger-pointing and “blames-manship” will be epic if Trump wins. Where is this headed? As my father said, “he who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat a lot of broken glass.”

But for those of us who believe in the great American Experiment — a constitutional republic based on the principles of freedom and democracy — this is what it looks like, folks. It’s raucous, sometimes ugly, painful, and chock full of anxiety. But one thing we can do and are doing is speak freely. That could all change. Imagine a world where the Trump police track down naysayers and truth tellers. He has vowed retribution, even military tribunals for his political enemies. And then he would not be subject to prosecution. In our system of government, we have the right to question our leaders. If Trump wins, that could quickly disappear.

In the confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety of the moment, and amidst all the disappointing media coverage, it is time to remind ourselves once again what is at stake in this election.

Please know that we feel your anxiety and we welcome your insights, your frustration, your worries in the comments on this forum. It’s an open exchange. All I ask is that you remain respectful to your fellow Steady readers. Please, no name-calling or foul language. I enjoy reading your comments. We desperately need this passion come November. Our democracy depends on it.

Categories Biden, Elections, Hypocrisy, Media, Trump

Peter Greene Debunks the Leading Evangelist for the School Choice Movement

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2024 //
5

Peter Greene, who taught for 39 years in Pennsylvania, wrote recently in The Progressive about Corey DeAngelis, who travels the nation to trash public schools and to advocate for vouchers. If you hate public schools and unions, he’s your guy. If you adore Betsy DeVos and her plans to destroy local communities and to get more children into discriminatory religious schools, he’s your guy.

Greene writes:

Corey DeAngelis is an influential, if not the most influential, voice in the rightwing campaign to demonize public schools and privatize public education. The guy’s résuméhits all the bases in the libertarian gameplan. After earning a doctorate at the University of Arkansas’s education reform program (funded bythe pro-school choice Walton family), DeAngelis helped found the Education Freedom Institute, became a senior fellow at the Reason Foundation, worked as an adjunct scholar at the CATO Institute, took up an appointment as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and was hired on as a senior fellow at Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children.

He still holds all of those jobs, but his more common title is “school choice evangelist.” As the recent school voucher wave has surged in state after state, DeAngelis has been there to spread the word. While on tour in support of his new book, he distills the current pro-voucher argument.

In a recent talk at the Heritage Foundation, DeAngelis touched on most of the main arguments for vouchers (many of them false) and revealed a few truths about the pro-voucher strategy.

1. The Evil Unions and COVID

The villainy of the teachers union is a thread that runs through much of DeAngelis’s argument, especially related to the COVID-19 pandemic narrative. DeAngelis blames the unions (and American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten) for “fear mongering” and accuses them of extorting ransom payments by holding schools hostage. The unions, he charged, used the pandemic to empower themselves and the “government schools” that he calls “a jobs program for adults.”

There’s no recognition that teachers had a legitimate fear during the pandemic or that hundreds of educators died of COVID-19. Nor did he mention the many private and non-union charter schools that also closed their doors. Every problematic decision that he cited from pandemic times is blamed on the union, with no mention that Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education provided little or no guidance to districts facing difficult decisions in an evolving situation.  

DeAngelis’s narrative argues that parents viewing Zoom school were appalled and awakened by what they saw. That oft-repeated tale stands in contrast to polls that show the vast majority of parents were satisfied with how their schools handled COVID-19. A 2022 Gallup poll found that, while the general public’s opinion of public schools is “souring,” parents’ favorable opinion of their own school matched pre-pandemic levels. The common sense conclusion to draw from this data is that people who don’t have first-hand experience with public schools are developing a low opinion of them based on some other source of information.

DeAngelis’s argument has other flaws. He claimed that the unions extracted a huge ransom from schools. But he also argued that pandemic relief funds given to schools never reached teachers and were, instead, soaked up by administrative bloat, which would seem to be a big tactical blunder on the unions’ part.

2. The Evil Unions and the Democratic Party

DeAngelis made the unusual claim that Democrats aren’t having kids, but Republicans are. But that, he said, won’t save conservatives because schools are fully “infiltrated by radical leftist union teachers.” The left uses schools as a way to control other people’s children. The Democratic Party, he added, is a fully owned subsidiary of the teachers’ union.

DeAngelis also repeated a false narrative of the National School Board Association’s supposed campaign to muzzle parents. In fall 2021, local school boards found their usually sleepy meetings had turned into wild, threatening, and even violent chaos. The NSBA turned to the Biden Administration for help, calling some of the actions “the equivalent of a form of domestic terrorism or hate crimes.” This was quickly and inaccurately cast as the Democratic administration calling parents domestic terrorists.

The resulting controversy caused the NSBA to lose some members, which DeAngelis seemed happy about. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” he said.

This narrative that smears public school-friendly groups fits a general pattern of conservative attacks on groups seen as Democratic Party supporters.

Open the link to read more about the DeVos-funded public school hater who is spreading his propaganda across the nation.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bigotry, Billionaires, Democracy, Education Industry, Evil, Extremism, Privatization, Propaganda, Segregation, Shame, Unions, Vouchers
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