The Michigan Finance Campaign Network published a report on DeVos Family political giving. This is not a comprehensive report, as others have shown that the DeVos Family utilizes other vehicles for its political gifts. This report documents $82 million, but when Senator Sanders asked Betsy DeVos whether her family had given $200 million to Republican politicians, she agreed that the number sounded right. Of course, it is easy to misplace a hundred million or so.
Archives for category: Betsy DeVos
Not one Republican voted to defend our public schools against the most unqualified nominee for Secretary of Education in history
#stopprivatization
#dumpdevos
Betsy DeVos will very likely get the approval of the 12 Republicans on the Senate HELP committee today, despite being totally unqualified to be Secretary of Education.
Meanwhile, the New York Times published an article about the “brain enhancement” company that DeVos and her husband invested in, and which she said she will not withdraw from. This means she has a direct conflict of interest. But Trump has demonstrated that financial conflicts of interest are no problem, so let the money flow to the investor even if she is a government official who can promote her investments.
But a review of Neurocore’s claims and interviews with medical experts suggest its conclusions are unproven and its methods questionable.
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Neurocore has not published its results in peer-reviewed medical literature. Its techniques — including mapping brain waves to diagnose problems and using neurofeedback, a form of biofeedback, to treat them — are not considered standards of care for the majority of the disorders it treats, including autism. Social workers, not doctors, perform assessments, and low-paid technicians with little training apply the methods to patients, including children with complex problems.
In interviews, nearly a dozen child psychiatrists and psychologists with expertise in autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or A.D.H.D., expressed caution regarding some of Neurocore’s assertions, advertising and methods.
“This causes real harm to children because it diverts attention, hope and resources,” said Dr. Matthew Siegel, a child psychiatrist at Maine Behavioral Healthcare and associate professor at Tufts School of Medicine, who co-wrote autism practice standards for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “If there were something out there that was uniquely powerful and wonderful, we’d all be using it.”
Will the new Secretary tout the miracle of biofeedback as a cure for autism?
I found this picture on the Twitter feed of the Alt_DeptofED:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Alt_DeptofED/status/825746591344631808/photo/1
“If I have to be highly qualified to serve my students, why doesn’t DeVos?”
Just in case you thought that no one on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee understood that Betsy DeVos is a threat to the future of public education, read Senator Tim Kaine’s letter.
January 26, 2017
Dear Mr. XXXXXXXX:
Thank you for contacting me about the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education. I appreciate hearing from you.
Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution requires the advice and consent of the Senate on certain appointments made by the President, including cabinet secretaries. The committee of jurisdiction for each nomination conducts hearings with respect to each candidate before they are considered by the full Senate. Members of the Senate have a responsibility to ensure that nominees possess the qualifications, integrity, and independence that is necessary to carry out the responsibilities of the job on behalf of the American people. I take my responsibility to scrutinize every nominee very seriously.
The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on the DeVos nomination on January 17th, 2017. As a member of the HELP Committee, I asked Mrs. DeVos questions regarding her education, experience, and policy positions. While I appreciate Mrs. DeVos’s willingness to serve, I have decided to oppose her nomination. Mrs. DeVos failed to show that she was a strong advocate for public schools, accountability, and civil rights. Commitment to these principles is essential to serving as Secretary of Education and carrying out the duties of this position in a manner that will benefit all of our nation’s students.
Over 90 percent of our nation’s children attend public schools. But Mrs. DeVos has said that public schools are a ‘dead end’ and that ‘government really sucks’ when it comes to education. This statement betrays the commitment of thousands of public school teachers who work hard every day in our public schools, many in tough working conditions, to ensure our children are educated. I could support a nominee who is for expanded options and improvement for all schools, public and private, but I cannot support a nominee who has a reflexive and ideological bias against public schools.
I am also concerned that Mrs. DeVos does not recognize that accountability for all schools is essential to closing achievement gaps in our country. Our efforts to enhance the national educational system must make student performance a priority, and any school receiving government funding should be held to the highest standards for its students. During her confirmation hearing, I asked Mrs. DeVos whether all schools that receive taxpayer funding should be held equally accountable for outcomes, particularly because President Trump has proposed allocating $20 billion to private schools in a nationwide voucher program. Mrs. DeVos repeatedly refused to say there should be equal accountability between public, public charter, and private schools receiving tax dollars.
Mrs. DeVos also left me in doubt about whether she understands or would uphold critical civil rights laws, including the rights of thousands of students with special needs. She demonstrated little understanding of – or support for – the primary fundamental law regarding education of kids with disabilities, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which if confirmed as Secretary she would be in charge of enforcing. Our Secretary of Education must be committed to upholding the principle of the federal IDEA to provide ‘a free and appropriate public education’ for all. When I asked whether schools receiving taxpayer dollars should all be required to follow federal law, guaranteeing these students an education appropriately tailored to their abilities, she declared that was a decision for the states.
An appropriate candidate for Secretary of Education will champion our public schools, support equal accountability for all schools receiving taxpayer funding, and support the national consensus that kids with disabilities should have fair learning opportunities. I am disappointed that President Trump failed to nominate such a champion, and I will be opposing the nomination of Betsy DeVos.
Please be assured that I will continue to make the education of our nation’s students a top priority. Thank you again for contacting me.
Sincerely,
Tim Kaine
The following article was sent to me by education researchers Russ Bellant and M. Denise Baldwin. Baldwin is a former teacher in Saginaw. Recently, I was on an NPR program hosted by Warren Olney with three other people, one of whom spoke on behalf of Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children. He insisted that not a single public school in Detroit had ever been closed. This article says that the number of public schools closed in Detroit over the past 20 years is nearly 200, with more school closings ahead, all in African American communities. Meanwhile the Detroit Free Press published an article showing that the closure of neighborhood schools–DeVos’s goal–means less choice for black residents, who no longer have a school they can walk to or transportation to schools of “choice.”
DeVos leads push for school closings, only African American schools targeted
By Russ Bellant and M. Denise Baldwin
When Michigan Governor Rick Snyder concluded that a new law that restructured Detroit Public Schools prohibited school closures until 2019, the DeVos network reacted immediately, demanding closures of Detroit schools. They enlisted elected officials who had received campaign contributions from the DeVos apparatus. Now the Governor has backed down, despite considerable legal muscle that agreed with his interpretation.
In a shocking move, the Governor has proposed the closing of 38 schools across the state, including 24 Detroit public schools (and one Detroit charter). But an examination of the list shows a disturbing pattern: all of them serve primarily African American populations.
The DeVos entity that speaks to education issues in the state, Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), quickly demanded that all 38 be shut down. They ignore the reality that in one part of Detroit, it would close all the area high schools and abandon K-8 education in a large area of the City. More fundamentally, they ignore the fact that they are accelerating separate and unequal education in Michigan.
GLEP, which was set up and has been primarily funded by Dick and Betsy DeVos, has been aggressive in advocating the shutting down of public schools and replacing them with charters. The charters, in turn, have been seen as a base to get electoral support for vouchers, according to plans formulated in the mid-1990s. An amendment to the Michigan Constitution to permit vouchers was put on the ballot by the DeVos family in 2000, but it was soundly defeated.
Undeterred, the DeVos machine continues their plan to charterize Michigan public schools with no caps or accountability mandated. The charters, some placed by DeVos allies, are set up primarily in communities of color. Eighty percent are for-profit corporations, according to a Western Michigan University study. They average a thousand dollars profit off each student, out of a state foundation of just over $7,000 per student.
White school districts have been more resistant to state intervention when school performance is an issue, and it gets more attention. But when Black schools are targeted, there is less statewide concern, so they are seen as a path of least resistance for charterizers.
DeVos has directly used her political muscle to take a highly rated Detroit aeronautics high school and have a state subsidy for that school transferred to a DeVos-created charter high school in west Michigan. They also took the Detroit curriculum as their own. The West Michigan Aviation Academy says that the school was an inspiration of Betsy DeVos.
It remains to be seen how much the Michigan public will tolerate the dismantling of their districts. One school that is in an otherwise majority white district plans a determined resistance to the state closing plan. The East Detroit Public Schools, in a county that voted for Trump, has on its website a statement from its Superintendent that “We have no intention of allowing the SRO (from the Governor’s office-RB) to dictate the future of our students.” A school board member added that “East Detroit Public Schools will not accept the closure of any of the District’s schools by the state and will not allow the SRO to intervene at this point in our plans. School closures hurt children.”
The state is also facing lawsuits over its destruction of public schools and educational quality. They have directly controlled the Detroit schools for the last eight years and 15 of the last 18 years. Their citation of academic shortcomings they created as justification of the closings is really an indictment of state control, a subject they avoid.
The state has also dismantled four school districts across the state. All were African-American communities. Currently three of the proposed schools for closure in Saginaw and in Bridgeport-Spaulding Public Schools serve students who were displaced when their home district, Buena Vista, was dissolved. The proposed closings would subject hundreds of students to two major school dislocations.
Detroit is the model of proving that mass closures only put districts in a downward spiral. In the last 13 years 172 district schools (61%) have been closed, mostly by the state, in response to state-created debt and academic performance. Another 15 were taken and turned into the Governor’s personal school district. Closings have lead to abusive charterization and neighborhood abandonment. If closures were the solution, Detroit would be the Harvard of K-12 education.
There is a likely legal challenge to the DeVos-led dismantling of public education based on impact disparities on African American communities. DeVos has shown no reluctance to exploit this vulnerability in our social fabric as she seeks a world of profit-driven charters and vouchers that undermine over a half-century of educational progress.
Peter Greene, like Mercedes Schneider, checks into the background of the group called Friends of Betsy DeVos and finds that it apparently has only one member, a hired PR guy. He suggests that she buys friends.
But that may not be true. She has many many friends, as we learn from a press release issued by Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, where DeVos was a board member until recently. Like DeVos, FEE supports school choice of every variety and doesn’t like public schools. It was also a strong supporter of Common Core but doesn’t say much about it these days.
FEE issued this letter endorsing DeVos:
Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, 72 leaders and organizations, including the Foundation for Excellence in Education, joined the following open letter to show their support for Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education.
Betsy DeVos is an undisputed champion of families and students. For nearly 30 years she has devoted time and resources to improving education options for our nation’s children. Yet millions still languish in failing schools in an education system more than a century old. It’s time for a new vision.
Betsy DeVos provides that vision. She embraces innovation, endorses accountability and—most especially—trusts parents to choose what is in their unique child’s best interests. She also believes in providing every parent with the resources and choices to pursue those decisions.
On this week, National School Choice Week, we the undersigned endorse this champion of choice and the education reforms needed to improve the future of every child in America. And we strongly advocate for her confirmation as our next U.S. Secretary of Education.
Sincerely,
Jeff Atwater, Chief Financial Officer, State of Florida
State Representative Robert Behning, Indiana
State Representative Michael Bileca, Florida
State Representative Buzz Brockway, Georgia
State Representative Wes Cantrell, Georgia
State Representative David Clark, Georgia
State Representative Kim Coleman, Utah
State Representative Manny Diaz, Jr., Florida
Steve Durham, Member, Colorado State Board of Education
Lt. Governor Dan Forest, North Carolina
State Senator Dolores Gresham, Tennessee
State Senator Don Gustavson, Nevada
State Senator Joe Hardy, Nevada
State Senator Owen Hill, Colorado
State Representative Paul Lundeen, Colorado
Pam Mazanec, Member, Colorado State Board of Education
Adam Putnam, Commissioner of Agriculture, State of Florida
State Senator Michael Roberson, Nevada
State Representative Rebecca Roeber, Missouri
State Representative Ed Setzler, Georgia
State Representative Valencia Stovall, Georgia
Agudath Israel of America-Washington Office
Alabama Federation for Children
American Association of Christian Schools
Arizona Federation for Children
Frederick Hess, Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute*
American Federation for Children
Americans for Prosperity
Americans for Prosperity-Arizona
Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Arizona Charter Schools Association
Black Alliance for Educational Options
Business Council of Alabama
CarolinaCAN
Center for Arizona Policy
Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri (CEAM)
Civitas-North Carolina
EdChoice
Educate Nebraska
Empower Mississippi
Foundation for Excellence in Education
Florida Charter School Alliance
Florida Coalition of School Board Members
Georgia Charter Schools Association
Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP)
Hispanic CREO
Idaho Charter School Network
Independence Institute
Independent Women’s Voice
Institute for Better Education
Institute for Quality Education
Jeffersonian Project
Louisiana Association of Business & Industry
Louisiana Federation for Children
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Maggie’s List
Missouri Education Reform Council (MERC)
National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
Parents for Choice in Education
Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina (PEFNC)
Pennsylvania Coalition for Public Charter Schools
Public School Options
Ready Colorado
Reason Foundation
Rio Grande Foundation
SchoolForward
Tennessee Federation for Children
Texans for Education Opportunity
The Center for Education Reform
The Libre Initiative
Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Wisconsin Federation for Children
*Signing as an individual. AEI as the organization does not take a stance on such matters.
Americans are very entrepreneurial. Here is a gentleman in Alabama who learned of the grizzly bear problem in American schools, and he has come up with some mighty fine ways to deal with the bear problem. And you don’t need a gun to control the critters.
For nearly a decade, public schools have been under siege by politicians and pundits. The biggest salve before now was the fraudulent propaganda film “Waiting for Superman,” which gathered together all the lies about teachers, unions, “failing” public schools, and charter-schools-to-the rescue. It launched the full frontal attack, funded by Wall Street, the Waltons, Eli Broad, and Bill Gates. They didn’t want to “reform” public schools that needed help, they wanted to privatize as many public schools as possible, starting in the poorest neighborhoods, where there was the least political power to resist the attack.
Now, Betsy DeVos has brought the plan into the open and stripped it of any pretense of being part of the “civil rights movement.”
As Gail Collins of the New York Times wrote, it is “Trump’s War on Public Schools.” Readers of this blog know that Trump is the full-blown version of reform-that-dare-not-speak-its-name (Privatization).
It is wonderful to see Collins blow up Betsy DeVos as Trump’s disastrous cabinet choice for education, despite her lack of qualification. She goes into detail about the damage that DeVos has done to Michigan and Detroit–not with vouchers, but with unregulated, unaccountable charters.
One of the most disturbing things about the Trump administration is its antipathy toward public schools.
Perhaps you remember the president’s mini-rant in his inaugural speech about an “education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge.”
Well, Trump’s choice for secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, is responsible for Michigan’s charter school boom, which currently costs the state about $1.1 billion a year. A 2014 investigation by The Detroit Free Press found myriad examples of “wasteful spending and double-dipping.” Thanks in large part to DeVos’s lobbying in the Legislature, there’s virtually no oversight. So much for the young and beautiful students.
Take that for a rant.
DeVos is stupendously rich, and a longtime crusader for charters, vouchers and using federal funds for religious education. She was once the Michigan Republican state chairwoman, a fact completely unconnected to the $200 million or so her family has donated to the party. She’s used all that clout to make Michigan a model of how not to improve public education.
Readers of this blog know about her embarrassing performance before the Senate HELP committee. Collins sums up:
We have two problems here. One is that DeVos is obviously unqualified. While it was nice to learn that she “mentors students,” that’s not really a great preparation for running a 4,400-employee organization with a $68 billion budget. She has never actually worked in a school system or managed a large institution — she and her husband became billionaires through the old-fashioned strategy of having stupendously rich parents.
DeVos’s big selling point for Republicans is her manic devotion to charter schools. There are, of course, some great charters around the country. But there are also some terrible ones, and she is deeply unenthusiastic about any system that would weed out the losers.
She invested in K-12 Inc., the cybercharter company where students learn less each year. The bottom line is that she was picked to harm public schools. As Trump might tweet, “So sad.”
Think of Betsy DeVos as the Darth Vader of public schools. Has she ever visited a public school? Why does she think they are all failing?
Mercedes Schneider noticed how many fliers she was receiving in the mail, urging her to take advantage of Louisiana’s voucher program. The fliers came from the Alliance for School Choice. Who do you think leads that anti-public school group? Betsy DeVos.
Schneider noticed that most of the vouchers were targeted for students in New Orleans, where reformers have almost extinguished public schools. They are trying to poach students from charter schools to apply for vouchers!
Of the hundreds of thousands of students eligible for vouchers in Louisiana, only 1% have applied. Not exactly a stampede.
Parents in Louisiana are choosing public schools.
DeVos and Alliance for School Choice: Where the Ultimate “Choice” Means Vouchers to Private Schools
Diane Ravitch's blog 