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Trump Moves to Shut Down US Department of Education

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2025 //
11

Trump said he would close the Department of Education, and he’s well on the way to closing a Congressionally-authorized Department without asking Congress for permission.

He and wrestling entrepreneur Linda McMahon have decided that the Department is responsible for stagnant test scores. Nothing could be stupider but what would one expect from people who look with contempt on education. Especially public schools.

I cannot explain their thinking but know this: Trump wants to destroy research into science and medicine. He wants to control the curriculum and to ban teaching about race, ethnicity and gender.

As Forrest Gump’s mother taught him: “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Michael C. Bender of The New York Times wrote:

The Trump administration announced on Tuesday an aggressive plan to continue dismantling the Education Department, ending the agency’s role in supporting academics at elementary and high schools and in expanding access to college.

Those responsibilities will instead be largely taken over by the Labor Department.

Additional changes include moving a child care grant program for college students and foreign medical school accreditation to the Health and Human Services Department, and transferring Fulbright programs and international education grants to the State Department. The Interior Department will take over the Indian Education Office.

Shifting duties away from the Education Department aligns with President Trump’s goal of eventually closing the agency, a move opposed by teachers’ unions and student rights groups and one that can only be accomplished with an act of Congress.

Less clear was how moving programs to other agencies aligned with Mr. Trump’s reason for closing the Education Department, which he has said was to give states more power in shaping school policies. A senior official at the Education Department said the changes would streamline bureaucracy so that “at the end of the day, it means more dollars to the classroom.”

“Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement, adding that the changes were an attempt to “refocus education on students, families and schools.”

The plan drew some immediate blowback from Republicans, including Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who said in a statement that the “department’s core offices are not discretionary functions.”

“They are foundational,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. “They safeguard civil rights, expand opportunity, and ensure that every child, in every community, has the chance to learn, grow and succeed on equal footing.”

Kevin Carey, the vice president for education and work at New America, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said the changes were “wasteful, wrong and illegal.”

“Secretary McMahon is creating a bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine that will waste millions of taxpayer dollars by outsourcing vital programs to other agencies,” Mr. Carey said. “It’s like paying a contractor double to mow your lawn and then claiming you’ve cut the home maintenance budget. It makes no sense.”

Administration officials have pointed to the recent federal shutdown to justify the moves, noting that schools remained open and students continued to be taught despite nearly all of the Education Department’s staff having been furloughed.

The department has posted several social media memes making such a point. In an X post last week, the department announced that federal workers were returning to the office, adding, “But let’s be honest: did you really miss us at all?”

Liz Huston, a White House spokeswoman, said the administration was committed to shrinking the agency “while still ensuring efficient delivery of funds and essential programs.”

“The Democrat shutdown made one thing unmistakably clear: Students and teachers don’t need Washington bureaucrats micromanaging their classrooms,” Ms. Huston said.

Republicans in charge of the House and Senate in Washington have signaled little enthusiasm for voting on a bill to close the department, which was created by an act of Congress in 1979.

Mr. Trump has also shown little interest in collaborating with Congress in his bid to reshape the federal government, and his administration has continued to seek ways to diminish the Education Department.

“We’re going to shut it down, and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Mr. Trump said in March after signing an executive orderthat directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start razing the department.

Ms. McMahon’s first act after joining Mr. Trump’s cabinet this year was to instruct the department’s staff to prepare for its “final mission” of shuttering the agency. The following week, Ms. McMahon fired 1,315 of those workers.

The layoffs decimated the department’s Office for Civil Rights, which was created to enforce Congress’s promise of equal educational opportunity for all students, and eliminated the agency’s research armdedicated to tracking U.S. student achievement, which for many students is at three-decade lows.

In July, after the Supreme Court cleared the way for mass layoffs at the department, the administration moved adult education, family literacy programs and career and technical education to the Labor Department.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Disruption, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Health, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Stephen Dyer: How the Ohio Legislature Cheats the Majority of Students, Who Are Enrolled in PUBLIC Schools

By dianeravitch
November 17, 2025 //
1

Stephen Dyer is a former legislator who keeps watch on the ways that Ohio Republicans have cheated public school students. Ohio Republicans love charters and vouchers, even though taxpayers have been ripped off repeatedly for years by grifters.

He writes on his blog Tenth Period:

Look, I like Greg Lawson as a guy. We’ve been on panels together and fought over things on the radio and in other places. 

But man, he really, really thinks y’all are stupid.

In an op-ed he had published in the Columbus Dispatch yesterday where he argued that public school districts whine too much about money, he made the following claim:

“State K-12 spending in 2023 was 39.5% higher than in 2010 — and school spending in 2024 and 2025 shows no sign of cooling off: “State funding for primary and secondary education totaled $11.64 billion in FY 23; was $13 billion in FY 24 (a $1.36 billion or 11.7% increase); and is estimated at $13.42 billion in FY 25, the second year of the state budget (a $415.8 million or 3.2% increase).”

See, Greg wants you to conclude something from these numbers: that public school districts are swimming in money and their griping over vouchers and his budget-sucking agenda is bullshit. It’s those greedy bastards in your local school districts that are causing your property taxes to skyrocket.

What he leaves out is that the numbers he’s using to make the districts-swimming-in-money claim include money for charter schools and vouchers. 

That’s right. 

He’s writing an entire article complaining that school districts whine too much about vouchers taking away money from public school kids by citing K-12 expenditure data that … includes money going to vouchers and charter schools.

Can’t make it up.

I’ll break down his ridiculous claim in two parts. 

Part I — Overall K-12 Funding

First, let’s look at the overall claim — massive increases to K-12 spending. Forget about the fact that the voucher and charter money need to be deducted out of that number. 

Let’s just look at Greg’s topline claim — the state’s spending tons more now than 15 years ago on K-12 education, so quit whining! 

Yes. Spending is up. But you know what else is up? 

Inflation. 

See, in the 2009-2010 school year, the state spent a total of $7.9 billion on K-12 education. In the 2024-2025 school year, that number was $11.5 billion. 

Big jump, right?

Well, if you adjust for 2025 dollars, that $7.9 billion spent on K-12 education in 2009-2010 is the equivalent of $11.9 billion, or about $400 million less than what the state spent on K-12 education last school year.

Let me repeat that.

The state is spending the equivalent of $400 million less on K-12 education than they did 15 years ago, adjusted for inflation.

Funny Greg didn’t mention that.

Part II — Privatizers Force Property Tax Increases

Now let’s look at charters and vouchers. Let’s just set aside how poorly charters prepare kids, or how the EdChoice program is an unconstitutional scheme that provides not a single dollar to a parent or child and voucher test scores aren’t great either, compared with school district counterparts.

Let’s just look at the money.

In the 2009-2010 school year, Ohio sent $768 million to charter schools and vouchers. 

Last school year, that number was $2.3 billion. 

For those of you scoring at home, that’s a more than 100% increase in funding for these privatization efforts … above inflation!

So while in 2009-2010 the state spent about same percentage of their K-12 spend on the percentage of kids who attended public schools at the time, last year the state spent 77% of their K-12 spend on the 84% of kids who attended public schools.

This cut in the share of state funding going to public school students can be directly tied to the state more than doubling the inflationary increase on charter schools and vouchers over the last 15 years.

Bottom line: What has this meant in funding for Ohio’s public school kids?

Well, in 2009-2010, the state, after deducting charter school and voucher funding, provided $7.1 billion for Ohio’s public school students. 

Adjusted for inflation, that’s $10.7 billion in today’s dollars. 

(I would also like to add that the 2009-2010 school year was the first year of the Evidence Based model of school funding that I shaped as the Chairman of the Primary and Secondary Education Subcommittee on the Ohio House Finance Committee. We pulled off this investment — greater than last school year’s investment, adjusted for inflation — in the middle of the Great Recession. So it’s not like we had shit tons of money lying around the way lawmakers do now. Which should tell you about the priorities back then vs. today.)

I digress.

Last school year, Ohio’s public school students received $9.1 billion.

That means that Ohio’s public school students are receiving $1.6 billion less, adjusted for inflation, than they did 15 years ago.

Should I mention here that not a single penny of the more than $1 billion going to vouchers is publicly audited to ensure the money goes to educate kids rather than Lambos for Administrators?

Anyway.

Put another way: If Ohio lawmakers and governors had simply kept the same commitment to charter schools and vouchers that they did 15 years ago and kept pace with inflation on their K-12 spend, Ohio’s public school students would have received $1.6 billion more last year than they actually did. 

In other words, we’d have a fully funded Fair School Funding Plan.

I’m not asking the legislature or Governor to do anything crazy here. No elimination of vouchers and charters. 

This is simply doing inflationary increases and making sure the percentage of state funding going to each sector (public, charter and voucher) matched the percentage of kids attending each sector. 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if the state had actually let “money follow the child”, Ohio’s public school students would have a fully funded Fair School Funding Plan and there would stillhave a $1.2 billion charter and voucher program!

Instead, state leaders have so overvalued private school vouchers and charter schools that now we have an unconstitutional EdChoice voucher program that doesn’t send a single dollar to a parent or student, charter schools that spend about double the amount per pupil on administration that public schools spend while tragically failing to graduate students, and a school funding formula that’s severely underfunded for the 84% of students who attend public school districts. 

While Greg might tell school districts, “Quit your bitching!”, I might humbly suggest that school districts haven’t bitched enough.

So when people complain about property taxes, directly point fingers at the Ohio legislature and Governor because they’re doing what they’ve always done — force you to fund the only thing — public schools — the Ohio Constitution requires them to fund. 

It’s governmental malpractice. And our kids are the ones who suffer.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, For-Profit, Ohio, Privatization, Vouchers

Ohio: Voters Oust Culture Warriors in Many School Board Elections

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2025 //
2

Ohio’s public schools have been victimized repeatedly by its Republican legislatures and governors. Charter schools, online schools, and vouchers have ripped off taxpayers and siphoned funds from public schools.

Last week, public school voters said enough.

At the national level, the 31 candidates field by the rightwing Moms for Liberty were defeated. Every one of them.

In Ohio, voters ousted rightwing culture warriors in most school board races.

In cities large and small around Ohio, conservative incumbents who ran for school boards on culture war agendas lost re-election. Outside candidates struggled as well. While off-year elections are quirky, some see ebbing political strength in anti-LGBTQ+ politics. 

It was a very good day for public schools in Ohio!

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Democracy, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Ohio

How Donald Trump Solved Healthcare (in His Brain)

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2025 //
13

The extended shutdown of the Federal government was caused by the Democrats’ efforts to save the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. Unless Republicans agree, the price of subsidies for these policies will soar. Many who can’t afford the health insurance are likely to drop their policy and have none at all.

Republicans have wanted to kill Obamacare for years. Not because it doesn’t work, but because it does. They want to eliminate any Democratic successes. Trump hates Obama and always has. First, because Obama was more popular than Trump, and second, because Obama is Black and more popular even now than Trump.

The Substack blog called Wonkette reported that Trump claims to have a plan to replace Obamacare. Or a concept of a plan.

Simple: Eliminate Obamacare and let everyone buy their own insurance.

Too simple: Insurance works by creating large pools of the insured, many of whom will never claim insurance.

Trump’s plan will protect those who can afford to buy insurance and leave behind those who can’t.

Read the column. Apparently Republicans are drafting a bill already.

Beware.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Disruption, Extremism, For-Profit, Health, Obama, Republicans, Trump

John Thompson: Oklahoma Wants to Copy the “Mississippi Miracle” by Retaining 3rd Graders

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2025 //
6

Oklahoma legislators are debating whether to follow the lead of Mississippi by adopting a phonics-based reading curriculum and requiring the retention of 3rd graders who can’t pass the reading test. Mississippi has been hailed for the dramatic rise in its 4th grade reading scores, which was initiated by the Barksdale Foundation in 1999 with a gift to the state of $100 million to improve reading.

The dominant Republicans in the Oklahoma legislature are taking advice from Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd group, which enthusiastically supports school choice, privatization, high-stakes accountability, and holding back 3rd graders who don’t pass the state reading test.

The key to instant success in the Mississippi model (it worked in Florida too) is holding back 3rd graders who can’t pass the test. If the low-scoring students are retained, 4th grade scores are certain to rise. That’s inevitable. Is the improvement sustainable? Look at 8th grade scores on NAEP. Sooner or later, those kids who “flunked” 3rd grade either improve or drop out.

Many years ago, I attended a conference of school psychologists. While waiting my turn to speak, the president of the organization said that the latest research showed children’s three worst fears:

  1. The death of their parents
  2. Going blind.
  3. The humiliation of being left back in school

Let’s not lose sight of the pain of those left back and think about alternative ways to help these children .

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, urges the legislators to think again before enacting a punitive retention policy.

Thompson writes:

The appointments of Lindel Fields as Oklahoma State Superintendent (replacing  Ryan Walters), and Dr. Daniel Hamlin as Secretary of Education, create great opportunities for improving our state’s schools. In numerous conversations with a variety of advocates and experts, I’ve felt the hope I experienced during bipartisan MAPS for Kids coalition which saved the Oklahoma City Public School System, and working with the experts serving in the administrations of Sandy Garrett and Joy Hofmeister. 

On the other hand, we still face threats from ideology-driven politicians and lobbyists who spread falsehoods about the simplistic programs they push. 

Just one example is a legislative committee meeting on the “Science of Reading.” Although I admit to being slow to acknowledge the need for more phonics instruction, and “high-dose tutoring,” as long it is not a part of a culture of teach-to-the test, I remain skeptical of simple solutions for complex, interconnected, problems. So, I am more open to positive programs, like those that enhance the background knowledge that students need to read for comprehension, as opposed to increasing test scores. 

But I’m especially worried Oklahoma could focus on the punitive part of the so-called  “Mississippi Miracle,” which requires the retention of 3rd graders who don’t meet accountability-driven metrics. 

For instance, when Rep. Jacob Rosecrants, a former inner-city teacher who took over my classroom when I retired, expressed concern that their “highly structured teaching and testing approach … might actually discourage reading,” his reservations were “largely dismissed.” Instead, Rep. Rob Hall, who asked for the meeting, said, “What we’ve learned from other states is that wide-spread illiteracy is a policy choice.” 

In fact, it is unclear whether Rep. Hall’s policy choice has produced long-term improvements in reading comprehension. 

Based on my experiences in edu-politics, and the judgements of local experts, who saw how our 2012 high-stakes testing disaster unfolded, I’d be especially worried by how the Oklahoma School Testing Program could be used to hold back kids, and the reward-and-punish culture it could produce. The same persons pushing accountability for 3rd graders also seem to believe the lie that NAEP “proficiency” is “grade level,” and that setting impossible data-driven targets will improve student outcomes. 

If these regulations were used to determine whether 3rd graders are retained, the damage that would be done would likely be unthinkable. It is my understanding that 50% to 75% of the students in high-challenge schools might not be eligible for promotion. And like the latest expert who briefed me about 3rd grade testing, I’ve witnessed the humiliation that retention imposed on children as Oklahoma experimented on high-stakes End-of-Instruction tests, which undermined learning cultures, even when they were just a pilot program.

I would urge legislators to read this study by Devon Brenner and Aaron Pallas in the Hechinger Report on 3rd grade retention. Brenner and Pallas concluded, “We are not persuaded that the third grade retention policy has been a magic bullet; retention effects vary across contexts. Even in Mississippi, the evidence that retention boosts achievement is ambiguous.”

By coincidence, another reputable study of the “Mississippi Miracle”  was recently published. Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum evaluated the “Southern Surge” in reading programs in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Alabama. And, yes, “Mississippi’s ascent has been particularly meteoric and long-running. Since 1998, the share of fourth graders reading at a basic level on NAEP has increased from 47 to 65%.” And, Louisiana’s 4th graders made progress.  

But, eighth graders’ results “have been less impressive for these Southern exemplars.” Alabama’s eighth grade reading scores have been falling and are among the lowest in the country. Louisiana’s eight grade reading scores remain at the 2002 level. And, Mississippi’s eighth grade reading scores are about the same as they were in 1998.

Barnum noted, “a number of studies have found that retention does improve test scores.” But:

The long-run effects of holding back struggling readers remain up for significant debate. A recent Texas study found that retaining students in third grade reduced their chances of graduating high school and decreased their earnings as young adults. A paper from Louisiana found that retention led more students to drop out. (Some studies find no long run effect on high school completion, though.)

I would also add that Tennessee’s huge School Improvement Grant, which was focused on test score gains, “did not have an impact on the use of practices promoted by the program or on student outcomes (including math or reading test scores, high school graduation, or college enrollment).”

Moreover, as the Tulsa World reported, Mississippi “spent two years and $20 million preparing for the rollout of the program.” It provided far more counselors and more intensive teacher training and student interventions. But it cites data suggesting “students who received intensive literacy instruction in third grade made only temporary gains, briefly besting their national peers in fourth grade but falling back behind in subsequent years.”

Even the most enthusiastic supporters of the “Mississippi Miracle”, like The 74, agree that it required “universal screenings to identify students with reading deficiencies early and to communicate those results to parents.”

And Mississippi’s success required the prioritization of “proactive communications and stakeholder engagement strategies around early literacy;” “building connections and coherence with other agency efforts across the birth through third grade continuum, especially pre-K;” and anticipating a “multi-year timeline to see changes in third grade outcomes, and invest in monitoring and evaluation strategies that can track leading indicators of progress and identify areas for improvement.”

What are the chances that Oklahoma would adequately fund such programs?

So, what will Superintendent Fields conclude after studying evidence from both sides of the debate?

The Tulsa World recently quoted Fields saying “that literacy is the building block. … So until we get that right, everything else is just going to be hard.” I’m impressed that he then added, “I’m learning about it myself.”

He then said:

What’s important to note about that is the Mississippi Miracle was not an overnight thing. It was more than a decade in the works. And I think if we were to model that and replicate it, you have to do the whole thing — we can’t walk around the block today and run a marathon tomorrow. I think replicating that and setting the tone for the next 8 or 10 years, we can expect to see the same kind of results. I think that’s an excellent example to look to.

Fields wants more than a “program.” He wisely stated:

We might disagree on how we actually get there, but I haven’t found anybody that disagrees that we have to get reading right before the other things.

He then called for “systemic, long-term dedication” to “a multi-faceted approach.” He also emphasized investments in teacher training, and the need to improve teachers’ morale.

In other words, it sounds like our new Superintendent is open to humane, evidence-based, inter-connected, and well-funded efforts that draw on the best of the “Mississippi Miracle,” but not simplistic, politicized, quick fixes, that ignore the damage that those ideology-driven programs can do to children. And I suspect he would think twice before holding back third graders before studying the harm it can do to so many students.

So, if I had just one recommendation to offer, I would urge a balanced effort that combines win-win interventions, not programs that can do unknown amounts of harm, especially to high-poverty children who have suffered multiple traumas. That would require a culture that uses test scores for diagnostic purposes, not for making metrics look better.

Categories Accountability, Curriculum, Education Industry, Education Reform, Ethics, Literacy, Mississippi, Oklahoma

Mary Trump: Her Uncle on Veterans Day

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2025 //
19

Mary Trump is the daughter of Donald Trump’s older brother Fred Trump Jr. Mary is a trained psychologist. If you haven’t read her first book about Donald and his dysfunctional family, you should. It’s called: Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

To mark Veterans Day, she wrote about her uncle on her blog.

To date, Donald has murdered over 79 people using the US military as a weapon in a way that is extralegal, unconstitutional, and a contravention of global law. Nobody seems to care. He’s also abusing the presidential pardon power, another thing we desperately need to reform in this country. One person he pardoned was involved in Donald’s insurrection on January 6th, 2021, and has since been revealed to be a pedophile. He pardoned or commuted the sentences of every single person involved on January 6th, even the most violent among them. Some of those people were supposed to serve jail sentences as long as 18 years, but because they were committing horrific acts of violence on his behalf, that was just fine with him. Recently, he pardoned people like Rudolph Giuliani, Jeff Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and others who were involved in the fake elector scheme to overturn the valid results of the 2020 election, the free and fair election that Joe Biden won by almost 8 million votes.

We know that Ghislaine Maxwell was Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator in the crimes of rape and sex trafficking of girls and young women. She has been transferred to a minimum-security prison, where she is reportedly receiving preferential treatment. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years of prison, and Donald will likely pardon her as well. Now, we are facing the very strong possibility that Donald will pardon her as well.

Why would somebody who cares about the rule of law or cares about justice pardon such people? Why would anybody want to be associated with such people? It looks like pretty much every single person Donald has pardoned, give or take, is some kind of criminal who has shown no remorse for his or her crimes. What does that mean? What does that tell us about him? Anybody willing to pardon Maxwell or any sex trafficker, any sexual abuser of women, men, or children, anybody willing to pardon someone who participated in the violent overturning of the American government is somebody who is just as bad, if not worse than they are. Instead of using his power to protect the American people from criminals like that, he sides with the criminals, unleashing them onto us.

Who is the last person on the planet who should be commemorating Veterans Day? Yes, that’s right– a five-time draft Dodger, coward, and traitor to America–Donald Trump. He marked today’s Veterans’ Day with an appearance at Arlington National Cemetery, one of the many things lately that makes my blood boil–the fact that scum has the right to step foot on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. Everything about the event was, as we should expect at this point, devoid of the respect and gratitude our veterans deserve. 

Donald also went on about changing the name of the holiday at the ceremony.

I was recently at an event, and I saw France was celebrating Victory Day, but we didn’t, and I saw France was celebrating another victory day for World War II and other countries were celebrating. They were all celebrated, we’re the ones who won the wars. And I said, from now on, we’re going to say Victory Day for World War I and World War II, and we could do for plenty of other wars, but we’ll start with those two. Maybe someday somebody else will add a couple more because we won a lot of good ones.

Today is not about any wars we won. It is about the sacrifices of our veterans, those who gave some or those who gave all to protect the American people. It is also about the American ideals of democracy and freedom. It’s not about victory. It is about honor and sacrifice, two things about which Donald Trump knows absolutely nothing. Next, in an essentially bizarre and meaningless rant, he bragged about firing people.

And the other thing is, we fired thousands of people who didn’t take care of our great veterans. They were sadists, they were sick people, they were thieves, they were everything you want to name. And we got rid of over 9,000 of them. And then when Biden came in, he hired them back, many of them, but we got rid of them, and I think we got rid of them permanently. We replaced them with people who love our veterans, not people who are sick people.

Every accusation is an admission. It is unspeakable that that man is allowed anywhere near a ceremony commemorating our veterans. There was another moment that captured Donald’s audacity–when he lectured troops about making the ultimate sacrifice, or at least he tried to do that. Here is what he said. 

We ask only this, that if we die, we must die. And we as men would die without complaining, without pleading, and safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right. We must do what is right. Colonel Wolverton died for us so bravely in battle today; we remember.

Donald has no right to speak about the sacrifices our veterans have made. He has no right to characterize the sacrifices that our veterans have made and continue to make. A man who doesn’t understand what the military does, what it should be used for, who has put this country in unspeakable danger because of his vast shortcomings. This draft dodger has called veterans suckers and losers. On a personal note, my dad was a second lieutenant in the National Guard, and he was treated like a sucker and a loser. 

Thousands of veterans across the country spent the day protesting Donald’s use of the military to enforce his cruel, illegal, and unconstitutional immigration policies. Fox 32 Chicago spoke to US Army veteran Arti Walker Peddakotla in the lead-up to the protest, and here’s what she had to say.

Given the fact that ICE is occupying our communities in some communities, we have military and National Guard members occupying our communities that veterans really needed to stand together with working-class people and speak out against this administration.

Vets say rallies are planned for here in Chicago, as well as cities across the country, to stand against not only the use of the military and immigration actions, but also the tactics of ICE agents and border patrol on immigrants and citizens alike.

As veterans, we sign up to really protect everyone, and no one is being protected by this administration’s tactics. No one is being made safer. In fact, our communities are being made more unsafe by what ICE is doing and what the military is doing on our streets.

Air Force veteran Judson Wager rallied with over 500 other veterans in Washington, DC. He told independent military outlet Stars and Stripes that, quote, 

We’re in the middle of an authoritarian takeover of our government.” Even as I’m honoring my fellow veterans, I’m also sounding the alarm for all Americans. Our democracy is in peril, and it will take all of us to protect it.

Donald is continuing to alienate our country’s closest allies. CNN reports that the United Kingdom has partially halted intelligence sharing with the us. They did this after finding that the Trump regime’s lethal strikes on suspected drug trafficking violate international law. CNN’s national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand shared additional details on this development.

Previously, the UK had been happy to help the United States locate and interdict vessels that were transiting the Caribbean that appeared to be trafficking drugs. But the key difference, of course, is that it was helping the Coast Guard intercept those vessels, arrest those on board, seize the drugs, and allow these individuals to have some semblance of due process. But now the US, of course, has started striking these boats unilaterally with military force, killing everyone on board. The total now for a number of people killed is around 76, and we’re told that the UK is deeply uncomfortable with that, and they believe that it is pretty blatantly illegal. Now, it is unclear exactly how long this intelligent sharing suspension is going to last, but we’re told that it has been going on for well over a month now, essentially since the US began its bombing campaign. And it really underscores the continued questions surrounding the legality of this US military campaign, which, of course, the US government, the Trump administration, has insisted is part of an armed conflict that is waging against cartel members and criminal organizations. But much of the international community, as well as legal experts inside the US, do not see it that way.

Let’s get back to our veterans. Yesterday, a flight filled with veterans and their families landed in Washington, DC, and was greeted by an unexpected guest. Please remember all our veterans, those still with us and those who aren’t.

Veteran: This honor flight is to honor all the veterans of World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam. It’s all free for them, but we show them all their monuments and explain what their monuments are about. We just try to treat them with dignity that some of them didn’t get when they came home from the war.

President Obama: Hello, everybody. As we approach Veterans Day, I wanted to stop by and just say thank you for your extraordinary service to you, your family. The sacrifices that all of you made to protect our country is something that will always be honored, and we are very grateful. And we also happen to welcome you with a 70-degree day in DC, which doesn’t always happen around here.

Veteran: That’s the first time I’ve seen a president, former or current, greet an honor flight, and that is absolutely amazing. A commander-in-chief, a leader who’s going to show up and tell you that your service was worth something. I think that’s the important part. So I think it was a great thing to have.

Veteran: The last time I got to see a president it was Gerald Ford.

Thank you, Barack Obama, for demonstrating what a real leader looks like.

Categories Accountability, Character, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Fraud, Trump

New Hampshire: Voucher Program Grows Beyond Its Budget; 80% of Vouchers Used by Students Enrolled in Private Schools

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2025 //
4

Garry Rayno of InDepth NH reports on the status of the New Hampshire voucher program, called Education Freedom Accounts. The program is growing beyond the budgeted amount, and the number of students it serves is expected to grow as family income limits are removed.

The program was sold, as it always is, as a way to save low-income children from low-performing schools. Actually, that claim is simply a hoax. By now, we know that vouchers mostly subsidize students who were already in private and religious schools. That’s the case in every state with vouchers. In New Hampshire, 80% of the students who take vouchers never were enrolled in public schools. In Arkansas, it’s 88%. The state is subsidizing their tuition, which was previously paid by their parents.

Garry Rayno writes:

CONCORD — Information released by the Department of Education this month shows the Education Freedom Account program has 10,510 students enrolled this school year.

The figure is based on average daily membership as of Oct. 1.

The program is capped at 10,000 students with exemptions for continuing students, students in the same family and students from households below 350 percent of the federal poverty level, or $74,025 for a two-member family and $112,525 for a four-member family.

According to the DOE information, the program with the current enrollment level will cost the state $51.6 million, while the program is budgeted for $39.3 million, or $12.3 million over budget this fiscal year.

Because the program hit the 10,000 cap this year, the cap will be increased to 12,500 next school year, which with similar distributions of children from lower income households, special education needs and English as a second language students, would project to be $61.4 million while $47 million is budgeted for fiscal year 2027, or $14.4 million over budget.

The total cost of the EFA program for the biennium would project to be $113 million, or $26.7 million over budget for the biennium.

The average grant under the program for this school year is $4,911, which is down from last school year when it was $5,204 when the program cost $28 million and served 5,321 students.

The percentage of low-income students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and receive additional money of $2,393 per student has fallen with the expansion of the program this school year to any student qualified to attend school in the state regardless of family earnings.

The percentage of students for low-income families dropped from 37 percent last school year to 19 percent this school year, while the percentage of students needing special education services increased from 7 to 9 percent, while English language learners totaled 20 this school year while there were only two students the year before.

Students qualifying for special education services receive an additional $2,185, and English language learners receive an additional $832 per student.

The base adequacy grant every EFA student receives is the same as public school students $4,266, which goes to the school district.

At the Joint Legislative Performance Audit Oversight Committee meeting Friday, the Legislative Budget Assistant’s Office said the audit of the EFA program is expected to be presented to the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee by next summer.

Christine Young, director of the LBA’s Audit Division, said her agency is currently doing field analysis and reviewing observations, which are concerns raised about practices or following statutes or rules.

The performance audit is required by law, but the LBA was unable to access program data because the DOE and the Attorney General’s Office said that information belongs to the administrator of the program, Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, which the state hired.

The LBA sought the information from the company, but was denied under the advice of former Department of Education Commissioner Frank Edleblut and told the committee the audit would have to focus on the DOE’s oversight of the program.

Young told the committee to date 40 observations have been noted with 15 finalized, most dealing with eligibility.

She said another 20 observations are being drafted.

A compliance report done by the DOE several years ago of the first two years of the program found about 25 percent of the applications to the program and for additional money for services were approved without the required documentation by the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH.

The organization may retain up to 10 percent for administering the program, which would be over $10 million this biennium.

The program was touted as an opportunity for low-income parents to find alternative educational programs for their children if they do not do well in the public school environment.

But as is the case in other states with similar programs, the vast majority — or about 80 percent — of the students enrolled in the program were not attending public schools, but attended religious and other private schools, or homeschooled when they joined the program.

With the expansion this year, many families whose children attend religious and private schools or homeschools, receive what is essentially a state tax paid subsidy.

The cost of the program when it was expanded to all eligible students in Arizona nearly bankrupted the state, and similar problems occurred in Ohio and North Carolina.

In the only vendor listing published by the Children’s Scholarship Fund NH, was for the first year of the program and is no longer on the Children’s Scholarship Fund’s website, the vast majority of grants went to religious and private schools.

Critics of the program have long claimed it lacks guardrails and accountability, but program supporters say parents are the best judge whether their child is receiving a good education.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Education Industry, Hoax, New Hampshire, Privatization, Vouchers

Watch PBS’s “The Rise of RFK Jr.” Learn Who He Is.

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2025 //
2

Last night I watched a PBS Frontline documentary: The Rise of RFK Jr.

This documentary is fascinating. It shows young Bobby’s idyllic childhood at the family’s sprawling, luxurious compound in Virginia. He grew up in a world of joy, fun, and privilege.

You can see how deeply he was scarred by the murder of his father, with whom he was very close. This was an experience no child should endure.

He is sent away to a boarding school, where he is soon kicked out. Then another, then Harvard, which was a given, in light of his name. At Harvard, he becomes addicted to drugs and a drug dealer. Pot, cocaine, heroin.

He goes to law school, flunks the bar exam, but eventually passes. He marries an eligible young woman, has children, divorces her. Still a drug addict. Meets a beautiful Catholic girl, marries her, has four children. He begins to find his niche as an environmental lawyer. Life is looking up. But he’s a sex addict and he keeps a record of his conquests–at least 37. His wife finds the record and hangs herself.

He believes he is destined for greatness. He is a Kennedy so he keeps looking for the vehicle that will catapult him to fame. He discovers angry mothers who are looking for the cause of their children’s autism. He latches on to the issue and becomes their champion. He also becomes a prominent anti-Vaxxer and conspiracy theorist.

He briefly runs for president in 2024 but soon realizes that his prospects are nil. Trump offers a big job if he joins his campaign. Bobby accepts his offer, to the dismay of his family.

Bobby speaks to large, adoring crowds. He loves it.

Trump appoints him to lead the government’s public health agency–Health and Human Services. His family is appalled. They know he is unqualified. They know he has no respect for science. He promises the Senate committee that he won’t stop vaccines, despite his long history as a critic of them. He wins approval.

He begins to fire prominent scientists and thousands of experienced employees. He throws the agency into turmoil.

So here we are.

Categories Accountability, Character, Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Fraud, Health, Safety, Science, Shame, Trump

Jan Resseger: Don’t Believe the Lies about State Control of Federal Funds

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2025 //
9

Jan Resseger recently read Arne Duncan’s cheerful hopes for the Trump education agenda and encouraged the public to look at the bright side. Then Jan remembered Arne’s disastrous Race to the Top, which even the U.S. Department of Education rated as a waste of money, and Jan looked elsewhere for advice. She found Kevin Welner’s sage thoughts.

My view is that Trump, his budget director Russell Vought, and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon ultimately hope to turn all federal funding into block grants to the states, no strings attached. No money dedicated to students with disabilities, no money for schools enrolling large numbers of low-income students. Federal regulations drafted by hard-hearted zealots of the Trump administration will be directed to vouchers, charters, cyber schooling and home schooling.

Don’t be fooled: The Trump administration wants to destroy public schools.

Jan writes:

In a recent column in the Washington Post, Arne Duncan suggested that even Democrat-led states can opt into the One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax credit school voucher program and redirect the funds into public schools or at least into programs that support achievement in public schools as a way to replace COVID American Rescue Plan funds that have run out. “This solution is a no-brainer,” he declares.

Here is Arne’s prescription: “The new federal tax credit scholarship program, passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, allows taxpayers to claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, or SGOs. These SGOs can fund a range of services already embraced by blue-state leaders, such as tutoring, transportation, special education services and learning technology. For both current governors and gubernatorial candidates, it’s a chance to show voters that they’re willing to do what it takes to deliver for students and families, no matter where the ideas originate.  By opting in, a governor unlocks these resources for students in their state. Some Democratic leaders have hesitated, however, worried that the program could be seen as undermining public schools, since private scholarships are also eligible. But that misses the point.”

Remember that Arne Duncan launched Race to the Top, which brought No Child Left Behind’s test-and-punish regime into the Obama years by offering gigantic federal grants as a bribe for states to turn around their lowest scoring 5% of public schools with rigid improvement plans—with the schools that failed to improve being closed or charterized—and with the teachers being held accountable and punished if they couldn’t quickly raise test scores. Because none of Arne’s programs worked out, I am hesitant to take Arne Duncan’s advice.

It is wiser to heed Kevin Welner’s warning in a new policy memo: Governors Beware: The Voucher Advocates in DC Are Not Serious about Returning Education to the States.  Welner is a professor of education policy at the University of Colorado, Boulder and the director of the National Education Policy Center.

Welner explains that the One Big Beautiful Bill requires the governors of the states to opt into the federal tax credit vouchers (or choose to opt out).  As Welner lists how the money can be used, it is clear that the federal dollars can be spent on private education but that, in addition, some programs supporting public schools themselves or their students could qualify: “Under the OBBB, nonprofit Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs) in states opting into the program are authorized to pool the donated money and then hand out “scholarships” for students’ ‘qualified elementary or secondary education expense[s].’ This is limited to the expenses allowed for Coverdell Savings Accounts,¹ which are tied to school-related needs, such as tuition, fees, and academic tutoring; special needs services in the case of a special needs beneficiary; books, supplies and other equipment; computer technology, equipment, and Internet access for the use of the beneficiary; and, in some cases, room and board, uniforms, transportation, and extended day (after-school) programs.”

Welner continues: “This idea of ensuring that each state could implement the program in ways that allow all flexibility is consistent with the Trump administration’s vociferous embrace of “returning education quite simply back to the states where it belongs.”  Welner, however, remains skeptical that the Trump administration really plans to return control of federal dollars back to the states:

“Unfortunately, the U.S. Treasury Department rulemaking is likely to deny states the promised flexibility, notwithstanding the administration’s rhetoric about ‘returning education to the states.’ While the law’s ardent supporters may want Democratic governors to participate, they don’t want to give them the flexibility permitted by the law itself… (T)he key issues for state leaders, particularly the governors who will make the opt-out or opt-in decision in most states, involve whether they can shape the program as it is implemented in their states.” Welner lists key concerns for governors and for those of us who have watched the damage done by the voucher programs now established by many state legislatures. “Governors will want to know… if they can:

  1. “Place requirements on SGOs involving reporting, governance, transparency, access, non-discrimination, profiteering, and prioritization of students with greater need;
  2. “Require that schools and other vendors… be accessible to students and not engage in discrimination against protected groups of students, including members of the LGBTQ+ community;
  3. “Put quality-control policies in place to weed out the lowest-quality of these vendors;
  4. “Limit the program to just one or two of the Coverdell categories, ideally research-based options such as high-impact tutoring and after-school programs.”

Welner warns, however, that powerful advocates at the federal level are “pushing hard for regulations that slam the door on any approach that does not further the growth of largely unregulated voucher programs.”

He recounts many of the problems with state level private school tuition vouchers:  Josh Cowen’s research documenting low academic achievement in voucher programs in Louisiana, Indiana and Ohio; the failure of voucher programs to protect students’ civil rights; “free-exercise” justification for public dollars diverted to religious schools; failure to provide programs for disabled students; diversion of massive state dollars to support private school tuition for wealthy students; and states’ failure to regulate teacher qualifications, curriculum, equal access, and oversight of tax dollars.

Welner thinks governors might do well to wait to make the decision about opting in until they can review the formal guidance which will eventually be provided by the U.S. Treasury Department. “(F)or state leaders who are tempted to opt in, that decision could be publicly announced as conditional on the Treasury regulations allowing the state the flexibility to include specified access, quality, and non-discrimination protections for the state’s students. “

He concludes: “In sum, the federal scholarship tax credit may look to some state leaders like an opportunity to secure additional resources for students, but the risks are profound. The structure of the law, coupled with the likely direction of Treasury rulemaking, points toward a program designed not to empower states but to constrain them—pushing states into a rigid, federally controlled voucher system that undermines educational equity and quality and presents long-run threats to the fiscal stability of public schools.”

¹https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/530   The term “Coverdell education savings account” means a trust created or organized in the United States exclusively for the purpose of paying the qualified education expenses of an individual who is the designated beneficiary of the trust (and designated as a Coverdell education savings account at the time created or organized), but only if the written governing instrument creating the trust meets the following requirements….”

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Failure, Funding, Race to the Top, Shame, Trump, Vouchers

Peter Greene: Arne Duncan Is Now Betsy DeVos

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2025 //
5

If you have ever wondered why I am crazy about Peter Greene, wonder no more. Just read this post that appeared on his blog. Peter is consistently smart, funny, wise, and insightful. He has a way with words. He is unerring in spotting phonies. He is fearless. Let me say it out loud: I love Peter Greene!

He wrote about the article that exposed Duncan’s true views. Until now, some of us had only inferred who he is. Now we know. Duncan”political advice” to Democrats–adopt Republican policies– is hilarious in light of Tuesday’s election results: across the nation, Democrats won school board races, and every Moms for Liberty candidate lost.

Peter Greene writes:

Mind you, on education, Duncan was always the kind of Democrat largely indistinguishable from a Republican, but with his latest print outburst (in the Washington Post, because of course it was), he further reduces the distance between himself and his successor as Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. 

For this one, he teamed up with Jorge Elorza, head honcho at DFER/Education Reform Now, the hedge fundie group set up to convince Democrats that they should agree with the GOP on education.

It’s yet another example of reformsters popping up to argue that what’s really needed in education is a return to all the failed reform policies of fifteen years ago. I don’t know what has sparked this nostalgia– have they forgotten, or do they just think we have forgotten, or do they still just not understand how badly test-and-punish flopped, how useless the Common Core was, and how school choice has had to abandon claims that choice will make education better in this country.

But here come Duncan and Elorza with variations on the same old baloney.

First up– chicken littling over NAEP scores. They’re dipping! They’re low! And they’ve been dipping ever since 2010s. Whatever shall we do?

Who do Duncan and Elorza think holds the solution? Why, none other than Donald Trump.

Seriously. They are here to pimp for the federal tax credit voucher program, carefully using the language that allows them to pretend that these vouchers aren’t vouchers or tax shelters.

The new federal tax credit scholarship program, passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, allows taxpayers to claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, or SGOs. These SGOs can fund a range of services already embraced by blue-state leaders, such as tutoring, transportation, special-education services and learning technology. For both current and incoming governors, it’s a chance to show voters that they’re willing to do what it takes to deliver for students and families, no matter where the ideas originate.

The encourage governors to “unlock these resources” as if these are magic dollars stored in a lockbox somewhere and not dollars that are going to be redirected from the United States treasury to land instead in some private school’s bank account.

Democratic governors are reluctant to get into a program that “could be seen as undermining public schools.” But hey– taking these vouchers “doesn’t take a single dollar from state education budgets” says Duncan, sounding exactly like DeVos when she was pushing the same damned thing. And this line of bullshit:

It simply opens the door to new, private donations, at no cost to taxpayers, that can support students in public and nonpublic settings alike.

“At no cost to taxpayers” is absolute baloney. Every dollar is a tax dollar not paid to the government, so the only possible result must be either reduction in services, reduction in subsidies, or increase in the deficit. I guess believing in Free Federal Money is a Democrat thing.

The “support students in public and nonpublic settings” is carefully crafted baloney language as well. Federal voucher fans keep pushing the public school aspect, but then carefully shading it as money spent on tutors or uniforms or transportation and not actual schools. And they are just guessing that any of that will be acceptable because the rules for these federal vouchers aren’t written yet.

Duncan and Elorza want to claim that this money will, “in essence,” replace the disappearing money from the American Rescue Plan Act. “In essence” is doing Atlas-scale lifting here because, no, it will not. The voucher money will be spent in different ways by different people on different stuff. They are not arguing that this money will help fund public schools– just that it might fund some stuff that is sort of public education adjacent.

But how about some “analysis” from Education Reform Now, which claims that the potential scale is significant.” They claim that “the federal tax credit scholarship program could generate $3.1 billion in California, nearly $986 million in Illinois and nearly $86 million in Rhode Island each year,” drifting ever closer to “flat out lie” territory, because the federal vouchers won’t “generate” a damned cent. Pretending these numbers are real, that’s $3.1 billion in tax dollars that will go to SGOs in the state instead of the federal government. It’s redirected tax revenue, not new money. Will the feds just eat that $3.1 billion shortfall, or cut, say, education funding to California? Next time I get a flat tire, will I generate a new tire from the trunk? I think not.

In classic Duncan, he would like you to know that not following his idea makes you a Bad Person. Saying no to the federal vouchers is a “moral failure.”

Next up: Political advice.

Over the past decade, Democrats have watched our party’s historical advantage on education vanish.

Yeah, Arne, it’s more than a decade, and it has happened because you and folks like you have decided that attacking and denigrating the public education system would be a great idea. You and your ilk launched and supported policies based on the assumption that all problems in school were the sole treatable cause of economic and social inequity in this country, and that those problems were the result of really bad teachers, so a program of tests followed by punishment would make things better in schools (and erase poverty, too).

But now the GOP states are getting higher NAEP scores, so that means… something?

This is Democrats’ chance to regain the educational and moral high ground. To remind the country that Democrats fight to give every child a fair shot and that we’ll do whatever it takes to help kids catch up, especially those left behind for too long.

Yes, Democrats– you can beat the Republicans by supporting Republican policies. And that “we’ll do whatever it takes to help kids catch up” thing? You had a chance to do that, and you totally blew it. Defund, dismantle and privatize public schools was a lousy approach. It’s still a lousy approach.

Opting in to the federal tax credit scholarship program isn’t about abandoning Democratic values — it’s about fulfilling them.

When it comes to public education, it’s not particularly clear what Democratic values even are these days, and my tolerance for party politics is at an all time low. But I am quite sure that the interests of students, families, teachers, and public education are not served by having the GOP offer a shit sandwich and the Democrats countering with, “We will also offer a shit sandwich, but we will say nice things about it and draw a D on it with mayonnaise.”

We have always heard that Arne Duncan is a nice guy, and I have no reason to believe that’s not true. But what would really be nice would be for him to go away and never talk about education ever again. Just go have a nice food truck lunch with Betsy DeVos.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Character, Closing schools, Common Core, DFER, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Ethics, Failure, Funding, Privatization, Race to the Top, Trump
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