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Rep. DeLauro Denounces DeVos Rule to Water Down Protection for Rape Victims

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2020 //
7

Predictably, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos took a stand against the victims of sexual violence, and did it while the world was distracted by the pandemic. Count on her to identify with predatory lenders, for-profit colleges, and anyone who exploits students.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro called out DeVos’s latest regulatory guidance that affects rape victims.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 6, 2020

CONTACT:

Will Serio: 202-225-3661

DeLauro Statement on Secretary DeVos’s Final Campus Sexual Assault Rule

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Chair of the House Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, released the following statement after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued a final rule on how schools must handle and respond to campus sexual assault and harassment allegations.

“Secretary DeVos’s new rule to address incidents of sexual assault and harassment is clearly and predictably on the wrong side of history. Rather than protecting survivors, these changes requiring a higher burden of proof for survivors and narrowing the scope of misconduct that will be addressed puts fairness and accountability—for both perpetrators and for schools—further out of reach. When students return to classrooms and campuses, we must ensure that they return to an environment that is safe, and where they are protected from sexual violence and harm. Secretary DeVos made that more difficult today.”

“In the broader context, at a time when our nation’s students, schools, and institutions of higher education face unprecedented challenges, we need leadership that promotes unity rather than division. Secretary DeVos’s decision to issue these regulations during a global pandemic is astonishing. The Department of Education has mismanaged billions of dollars in Congressionally-allocated emergency coronavirus relief for students and schools—using it to fund divisive, ideologically-driven policy priorities such as voucher-like proposals called microgrants. The Department should have spent more time following the letter of the law under the CARES Act rather than putting out a rule that significantly undermines protections for victims of sexual assault and harassment. I will work with my colleagues and advocates to pursue all possible routes possible to block this harmful rule.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Character

Congressional Leaders Rebuke DeVos for Excluding 7.5 Million Students from Emergency Aid

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2020 //
28

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a hard, cruel woman. We all knew she is a billionaire. What was not yet clear is that she is utterly heartless. She drew up a list of students who would not get any federal assistance during the pandemic, although Congress did not authorize her to exclude anyone.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 1, 2020

Contact:
Madeleine Russak: 202-224-5398 (Murray)
Will Serio: 202-225-3661 (DeLauro)

Murray, DeLauro Urge DeVos to Reverse Unauthorized Guidance Excluding 7.5 Million Students From Emergency Financial Aid

Murray, DeLauro: “The extreme eligibility restrictions… were added by the Department without any directive from Congress and without any statutory basis”

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, urged Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to reverse her harmful and unauthorized guidance that will restrict more than 7.5 million students from accessing sorely needed emergency financial aid provided under the under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). In a letter, the lawmakers stressed that the barriers created by the U.S. Department of Education do not exist in the law and will prevent aid from reaching students that Congress intended to support.

“Secretary DeVos pushing DACA recipients, undocumented students and other vulnerable students out of needed relief from the CARES Act is cruel. This virus doesn’t discriminate when it comes to the students who are impacted, and our response absolutely shouldn’t either,” said Senator Murray. “It is completely unacceptable that despite such dire need for assistance among students during this unprecedented time, Secretary DeVos has restricted emergency financial aid without any authorization. This is absolutely not what Congress intended, and Secretary DeVos must reverse this guidance immediately.”

“Secretary DeVos’s latest guidance unfairly restricts emergency financial relief for millions of students at institutions of higher education who need it most,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “The Department’s interpretation of the CARES Act has no basis in the text of the law nor Congressional intent. Students are struggling to make ends meet and keep food on the table just like countless people across the country right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Secretary DeVos should be making it easier for them to access this critical aid, not harder. I urge her to reverse course.”

The 7.5 million students that could be barred from funding under the restrictive guidance includes undocumented students, DACA recipients, students who have not filled out the FAFSA, students in adult basic education and dual enrollment programs who do not have a high school diploma, and more. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education unnecessarily prohibited students from using emergency financial aid for charges from their institutions even with their permission. This means that students relying on campuses’ limited food and housing services during this crisis—such as students experiencing homelessness and former foster youth—will face additional barriers to meeting these costs.

“The extreme eligibility restrictions, which were added by the Department without any directive from Congress and without any statutory basis, represent an unconscionable response to the virus that does not discriminate against which students are impacted by it,” wrote the lawmakers in the letter.

Read the full letter below and HERE.

May 1, 2020

The Honorable Betsy DeVos
Secretary of Education
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary DeVos:

We urge you to reverse your harmful and unauthorized guidance that significantly restricts the flexibility for emergency financial aid to students provided under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), Public Law No. 116-136. The federal resources provided in the CARES Act are critical to institutions of higher education (“institutions”) and students dealing with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Unfortunately, your decision could deny CARES Act relief to more than 7.5 million students in higher education.

Of the $12.6 billion allocated by formula under the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) of the CARES Act, no less than 50 percent was designated for emergency financial aid to support students’ cost of attendance. Students across the country are facing severe disruptions of their programs of study. They are under incredible financial strain and need additional support to continue their education while protecting their health and caring for their families.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Education (“Department”) released guidance 12 days after announcing emergency financial aid allocations under the CARES Act that imposed new and unwarranted restrictions limiting which students can receive funding. The barriers created by the Department do not exist in the CARES Act, will prevent emergency financial aid from reaching many students with financial need that Congress intended to support, and add substantial burden to implementation of the law.

First, the Department asserts that all emergency financial aid recipients under the CARES Act must be eligible for assistance under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA). This limitation excludes students who do not meet academic progress standards, students who have not registered for the Selective Service, students with some types of drug convictions, certain students in adult basic education and dual enrollment programs who do not have a high school diploma, international students, and students who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents, including all Dreamers, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, and other undocumented students.

The Department’s requirement that emergency financial aid recipients have “demonstrated eligibility to participate in programs under Section 484 of the HEA” also effectively requires that students fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). There is no other reliable or efficient way for an institution to determine and verify the extensive eligibility requirements of Title IV. A significant number of students enrolled in higher education—particularly low-income students—have not filled out the FAFSA. It is unreasonable to ask current students who are working to finish their terms to fill out a detailed form to receive emergency financial aid. According to the most recent estimates of FAFSA filing rates for 2015-16 from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, more than 7.5 million undergraduate and graduate students do not file a FAFSA. Thus, the Department’s unjustified decision to restrict emergency financial aid grants to Title IV eligible students will deny support to a vast number of working families.

The Department’s decision to restrict eligibility for emergency financial aid based on Title IV of the HEA is also plainly inconsistent with prior Department documentation. In the official “Certification and Agreement” form that institutions must sign to receive funding, the Department clearly states that, “The Secretary does not consider these individual emergency financial aid grants to constitute Federal financial aid under Title IV of the HEA.” It is unclear how the Department can impose federal financial aid requirements on funds it does not consider to be federal financial aid. The Department also emphasized in a cover letter to institutions the flexibility of emergency financial aid and discretion to institutions afforded under the CARES Act, stating that “the only statutory requirement is that the funds be used to cover expenses related to the disruption of campus operations due to coronavirus…” The Department’s subsequent guidance significantly limited this flexibility.

The Department’s inconsistency continues with its consideration of the 90/10 rule under Title IV of the HEA. While the Department managed to apply federal financial aid requirements based on the HEA to students, it chose to exempt funds under the CARES Act from counting as revenues considered in determining whether for-profit institutions meet the requirement to derive not less than ten percent of revenues from non-federal financial aid sources. The guidance indicates that “Funds paid directly to institutions by the Department through the HEERF will not be included as revenue for 90/10 purposes.” Once again, the Department has chosen to interpret the law selectively in a manner that harms vulnerable students and supports for-profit institutions.

Like the Department’s initial guidance documents, the CARES Act imposes no restrictions on student eligibility for emergency aid and makes no reference to the eligibility requirements associated with Title IV of the HEA. When we drafted emergency legislation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress did not place limitations on which students could or should get emergency aid—we simply directed the Secretary and institutions to make funds available to students. The extreme eligibility restrictions, which were added by the Department without any directive from Congress and without any statutory basis, represent an unconscionable response to the virus that does not discriminate against which students are impacted by it.

Additionally, the Department’s prohibition on allowing students to directly apply emergency financial aid to relevant institutional charges may disproportionately impact vulnerable students. The CARES Act clearly makes funding available to satisfy the cost of attendance, which includes tuition, fees, and institutionally-provided food, and housing. Many students rely on their institutions to meet basic needs. For example, a number of campuses that have restricted campus operations during COVID-19 still operate limited food and housing facilities for students—such as homeless students, former foster youth, and others with no “home” to return to. While we appreciate that the Department has appropriately prohibited institutions from using emergency financial aid dollars to reimburse themselves for operational expenses (in accordance with Section 18004(c) of the CARES Act), there is no reason to create obstacles for students who may not have access to a bank account and who may want to proactively elect to apply emergency grant aid to cover the cost of institutionally-provided services. The Department should allow and encourage institutions to disburse emergency financial aid as quickly, equitably, and seamlessly as possible. It is unreasonable that a student could not satisfy new institutional charges incurred after March 27, 2020, if they provide authorization to the institution to apply their emergency aid funds to such amounts.

Finally, the Department declared that “students who were enrolled exclusively in an online program on March 13, 2020… are not eligible for emergency financial aid grants.” The CARES Act does not state that individual students who were enrolled exclusively online could not receive emergency financial aid. Such decisions were intentionally left up to each institution so that campuses could make decisions that fit the unique needs of each student. The Department was again inconsistent with its guidance, as it afforded institutions discretion in the case of incarcerated students (as Congress intended) yet not with students enrolled exclusively online. Instead, the Department’s decision to prohibit support for fully-online students, and restrict the flexibility afforded by the CARES Act, will add additional burden to students and institutions.

We are deeply disappointed with your unauthorized decision to restrict eligibility for emergency financial aid to students during this difficult time for our country and in violation of Congressional intent. Accordingly, we urge you to reverse your decision to limit students’ access to emergency financial aid and block students from using funds for institutional charges. During this national emergency, it is essential to provide resources that meet the diverse needs of all our students and institutions of higher education. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.

Sincerely,

SENATOR PATTY MURRAY
Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate

Ranking Member, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions, U.S. Senate

CONGRESSWOMAN ROSA L. DELAURO
Chair, Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives

Categories Betsy DeVos, Cruelty

Jan Resseger: The Pandemic Shows Why Betsy DeVos Is Wrong

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2020 //
36

Jan Resseger points out that Betsy DeVos has spent her years in office berating public schools and claiming that children and families are on their own when it comes to school choice. She reminds us of a speech DeVos gave at an ALEC conference where she scoffed at the very idea of a school system. Each of us, in her view, rows our own boat, without regard for others. We are definitely not in this together as a society or a community.

In that same speech, DeVos endorsed the rugged individualism of Margaret Thatcher, DeVos spoke of Thatcher admiringly:

I was reminded of something another secretary of education once said. Her name was Margaret.  No, not Spellings — Thatcher.  Lady Thatcher regretted that too many seem to blame all their problems on “society.” But, “who is society,” she asked. “There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families” — families, she said — “and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”
The Iron Lady was right then and she’s still right today.

Every family on their own, no sense of mutuality, no connectedness with others. No society to protect the weak and to guarantee rights and responsibilities.

Then came the pandemic, and the world changed. Betsy is still singing the same tired song but the rest of the world recognizes that we are indeed knit together as communities and as a society, with shared responsibilities and needs. society does exist, and we all need it to function effectively. its terrifying to be on your own at a time of great peril that threatens us all, but is especially hard on the most vulnerable and weakest members of our society.

At such a time as this, we gain new appreciation for the ties that both bind and protect us. We turn to public institutions and count on them while the 1% lock themselves away in their cocoons.

She writes:

Despite public schools’ limitations in these virtual schooling months, and despite the inequity that surrounds and permeates them, however, the systemic presence of public schools—spread across small towns, city neighborhoods and suburbs; funded with state-constitution-driven formulas; organized with predictable curriculum; and staffed with millions of teachers educated about pedagogy, developmental psychology, educational philosophy, and their particular academic disciplines—leaves these institutions better prepared to serve students and to survive the current crisis with a strong foundation. Public schools are more stable than the many other institutions families need in these times when most parents have to hold jobs outside the home in order to survive.

Market-based solutions abandon children and families to fight for their survival on their own. The strong will manage. The weak will not. The inequities that already exist will deepen. DeVos’s do-it-yourself philosophy serves the haves and imperils everyone else. We must rebuild systems built around the needs of children and families and the principle of equal educational opportunity for all, accepting that society exists for our mutual protection.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Reform

Corruption Watch: DeVos Awarded $72 Million to IDEA Charter Chain Despite Negative Staff Reviews!

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2020 //
5

Three whistleblowers in the U.S. Department of Education filed complaints that Betsy DeVos overruled internal reviews to award $72 million to the IDEA charter chain.

This is not the way federal grants are supposed to work. Funds are supposed to be awarded based on peer reviews and staff reviews, not awarded as plums by political appointees. This is political interference at the highest level. This award should be revoked.

I have often referred to the $440 million federal Charter Schools Program as DeVos’s private slush fund, and this grant proves that my hunch was right.

Valerie Strauss writes in the Washington Post:

A U.S. congressman is demanding answers from the U.S. Education Department, alleging department employees complained to his office about political interference in the awarding of a multimillion-dollar federal grant to the controversial IDEA charter school network.


Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) sent a letter to the department Monday asking for details and records related to the awarding of the grant.

In an interview, Pocan said “three whistleblowers” told his office that professional staff evaluating applications for 2020 grants from the federal Charter School Program had rejected IDEA for new funding, deeming the network “high risk” because of how IDEA leaders previously spent federal funds.


But according to these whistleblowers, Pocan said, professional staff was overruled by political appointees who ordered the funding be awarded to IDEA. The identities of the whistleblowers were not revealed to The Post, nor were the names of the political appointees.


The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.


IDEA, a Texas-based charter school network with nearly 100 campuses in Texas and Louisiana serving nearly 53,000 students, said in a statement:
”Peer reviewers from education and other fields evaluate grant applications independently from Department of Education staff. In three of the last four Charter Schools Program competitions, spanning two administrations and including the most recent round of grants, the independent reviewers who evaluated applications gave IDEA Public Schools the highest scores of any applicant in the country. (In 2017, IDEA received the second-highest score.) All of the outside reviewers’ scores and comments are public on the Department’s website, and we encourage anyone doubting the strength of IDEA’s applications and our 20-year track record with students to read those reviews.”


Earlier this month, the Education Department announced it was awarding millions of dollars in new grants to charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated. IDEA was the top recipient, receiving $72 million over five years.

IDEA had previously received more than $200 million in funding over the past decade through the program.



But the network has been dogged by controversy. This month, IDEA chief executive Tom Torkelson resigned after publicly apologizing for “really dumb and unhelpful” plans that included leasing a private jet for millions of dollars and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on San Antonio Spurs tickets.

The Texas Monitor reported last month that Torkelson had flown on a private jet to Tampa to meet with DeVos to discuss “education philanthropy,” records show. The Monitor reported he was the only passenger on a jet that can hold nine people.


Last November, the Education Department’s inspector general criticized IDEA in an audit of data IDEA included in annual performance reviews it submitted to the federal government, required as part of the grants received from the federal Charter Schools Program.
The inspector general concluded that IDEA Public Schools “did not provide complete and accurate information” for all performance measures on annual performance reports over three years and did not report any information for 84 percent of the performance measures on which it was required to report over two years.

Still, IDEA had certified its annual performance reports were “true, complete and accurate.”
The audit also found IDEA “did not always spend grant funds in accordance with federal cost principles and its approved grant applications.”
IDEA acknowledged some of the findings, took issue with others, and agreed with all the recommendations from the inspector general to improve internal procedures.


That inspector general report, together with the suggestion that political appointees pushed through more grant money, should spark an even deeper inspection of IDEA, Pocan said in an interview.
“There needs to be an investigation,” Pocan said. “This would be completely improper to take a program that has to have inspector general reports and a lot of media attention about bad decisions they’ve made, and then to get a grant that wasn’t approved by the professional staff and instead given for political reasons.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Scandal, Texas, U.S. Department of Education

Bald Piano Guy Serenades Betsy DeVos!

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2020 //
5

The Bald Piano Guy is a very clever public school teacher in Great Neck, New York, who posts musical videos on YouTube expressing his views about education and politics, always with a smile. I erred in thinking he was a NYC teacher.

In this video, he has advice for Betsy DeVos:

“Go back to selling Amway/
Teaching really isn’t your thing.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Humor, New York City, Teaching

You Read It Here First: Betsy Uses Relief Funds to Push Vouchers and Online Ed

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2020 //
7

I posted yesterday that Betsy DeVos set aside more than $300 million of the billions in coronavirus aid to advance her personal agenda of undermining public schools. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who is chair of the House subcommittee that oversees education appropriations, criticized her misuse of the funds.

Chalkbeat has the story.

Betsy thinks the days of learning in physical buildings are obsolete.

I have often posted the research on virtual charter schools. The 2015 CREDO study showed the abject failure of online charter schools. Their results are abysmal. The most EPIC charter scandals are associated with virtual charters like ECOT in Ohio, now bankrupt, and the A1 chain in California, where 11 people were indicted for the disappearance of more than $50 million in state funds.

Betsy’s ideas are a proven failure.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Failure, Online Learning, Scandal, Virtual Charter Schools, Vouchers

Rep. DeLauro Criticizes Betsy DeVos for Using Coronavirus Relief Funds to Promote Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2020 //
23

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has never made a secret of her contempt for public schools.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro criticized DeVos for encouraging vouchers while dispensing coronavirus relief funds. This was never part of the intent of Congress. DeVos does whatever she wants to do without regard to Congressional intent.

Usually, it is a bad idea for a Cabinet officer to ignore the appropriators. DeVos doesn’t care. She has an ideological passion for vouchers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2020
CONTACT:
Will Serio: 202-225-3661

DeLauro Calls on Secretary DeVos to Remove Ideological Restrictions from Emergency Education Relief

WASHINGTON, DC — Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-03), Chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Education (ED), today released the following statement after ED announced the availability of emergency education relief funding for States “with the highest coronavirus burden” through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).

“Congress provided $308 million in emergency education relief in the CARES Act ‘for grants to States with the highest coronavirus burden’ to offer additional help to parts of the country where COVID-19 outbreaks have been more widespread and severe. I am astonished to see Secretary DeVos use today’s invitation to applicants for this critical aid to fund divisive, ideologically-driven policy priorities: including voucher-like proposals. At best, the Secretary is exploiting emergency relief legislation to insert Secretarial priorities not outlined in this section of the CARES Act. At worst, the Secretary is deliberately misreading the law to conjure up purposes for these resources that were not provided in Section 18001(a)(3) of the law. Secretary DeVos must back down from these inappropriate actions during this time of national emergency and refrain from imposing new restrictions and conditions on the aid provided to States.”

###
delauro.house.gov

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Vouchers

Jeff Bryant: How Betsy DeVos Is Using the Pandemic to Push Her Privatization Agenda for Charters and Vouchers

By dianeravitch
April 27, 2020 //
14

Jeff Bryant has kept tabs on Betsy DeVos, who is quietly turning the pandemic into an opportunity to advance her personal agenda of privatizing public schools. She is not going to let this massive national crisis and tragedy go to waste. She came to her position determined to “advance God’s Kingdom” and what better time to do that than now, as the nation is staggering with sickness and death?

Please open the article to see the many links for documentation and to read it to the end. Follow the money. Apparently “God’s Kingdom” needs as much public money as possible, and Betsy DeVos is shoveling it out the door as fast as she can to her friends in the education industry.

Jeff Bryant writes:

COVID-19 has shuttered public schools across the nation, state governments are threatening to slash education budgets due to the economic collapse caused by the outbreak, and emergency aid provided by the federal government is far short of what is needed, according to a broad coalition of education groups, but the charter school industry may benefit from its unique status to seek public funding from multiple sources and expand these schools into many more communities traumatized by the pandemic and financial fallout.

As school districts reported huge problems with converting classroom learning into online instruction delivered to students’ homes, often due to lack of funding for internet-capable devices and Wi-Fi hotspots, charter school proponents spread the news of how their industry could take advantage of emergency aid.

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Charter operators rolled out new marketing campaigns to lure families to enroll in their schools. And in national and local news outlets, advocates for charters, vouchers, and other forms of “school choice” helped forge a new media narrative about how the shuttering of the nation’s schools was an opportunity for parents and their children to leave public schools.

Teachers in Los Angeles and Oakland urged their districts to stop charter school expansions and co-locations, which they believe worsen the trauma that children in their communities are experiencing due to the virus. But the Trump administration and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos have shown no signs of easing up their campaigns to further privatize public schools.

“This is an opportunity,” said DeVos in an interview with right-wing radio talk show host Glenn Beck, “to collectively look very seriously at the fact that K-12 education for too long has been very static and very stuck in one method of delivering and making instruction available.”

A Gift from DeVos

On March 27, one of DeVos’s first reactions to the pandemic was to urge Congress to provide “microgrants” to help “the most disadvantaged students,” an idea that struck knowledgeable education policy observers—including retired teacher Peter Greene and National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen Garcia—as being in sync with her longtime advocacy for school vouchers. Somehow the mass shuttering of the nation’s schools convinced her “that necessity has never been more evident.”

A week and a half later, DeVos unveiled an investment of more than $200 million in grants from the federal government to help 13 charter school management companies expand.

It’s not at all clear the new grants come with new measures to oversee how charters spend the money. If they don’t, that would be a big mistake given a December 2019 report from the Network for Public Education (NPE) that found that since the charter grant program’s inception, approximately $1.17 billion has gone to schools that either never opened or that opened and have since shut down. The failure rate of charter startups funded by the education department’s Charter School Program is 37 percent.

An earlier NPE report, which I coauthored, also found that many charter management organizations that have received federal grants are “beset with problems including conflicts of interest and profiteering.” Some of the organizations receiving this new round of federal funding have these same flaws.

For instance, the largest grant, $72 million over five years, is going to the IDEA charter chain, which in January 2020 was publicly humiliated by reports in the Houston Chronicle for its plan to use $2 million in taxpayer money to buy a luxury private jet. The Chronicle also revealed the company had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars annually on tickets and luxury box seats at San Antonio Spurs NBA games—over $400,000 in the most recent year.

Another recent report, in the Texas Monitor, revealed IDEA executives spent over $800,000 on luxury travel between 2017 and 2019, including private jets and limos. In one of these larks, IDEA CEO Tom Torkelson took a private jet to Tampa to meet with DeVos “to discuss ‘education philanthropy,’” the Texas Monitor reports. Torkelson recently resigned.

Another charter chain benefitting from DeVos’s generosity is Mater Academy, which received the second-largest grant of $57.1 million. Mater Academy is affiliated with for-profit education company Academica.

As NPE executive director Carol Burris explained in the Washington Post, three schools operated by Academica in Florida, including two in the Mater chain, were the subjects of a government investigation that found “related party transactions” between Academica and “a real estate company that leased both buildings and security services to the schools.” The companies were also connected to founders of both the Mater Academies and Academica.

An extensive investigation of Academica’s business practices conducted by privatization watchdog group In the Public Interest in 2016 found in addition to providing management services, Academica also leased facilities to many of its schools and tended to charge significantly higher rents than what non-Academica charters were made to pay.

Each of these charter school operations deserves close scrutiny of their business practices, but DeVos has chosen to reward them with over $129 million in federal funding at a time when public school districts are in crisis and likely face severe budget cuts.

How Charters Double-Dip

When Congress and the Trump administration announced plans in late March to send $13.5 billion in emergency aid to public schools, the charter school industry insisted it deserves its cut of the rescue funds too.

Writing in the pro-charter media outlet The 74, Nina Rees, executive director of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), said DeVos and governors should encourage districts to release these funds to schools “without regard to differences in school model,” meaning not to exclude charters.

In her letter telling governors where to apply for the emergency funds, DeVos specified the money was intended to support “schools (including charter schools and non-public schools),” meaning funds could be spent on charter schools and private schools.

Days before, Rees insisted charter schools be regarded as public schools and eligible for emergency aid, her organization also advised charter schools to apply for federal rescue funds for small businesses devastated by the pandemic.

According to Education Week, charter lobbying groups including NAPCS have “urged charter schools… to consider applying for the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program, a short-term loan program designed to help businesses cover payroll expenses.”

Rees, who previously worked as a deputy assistant for domestic policy to former Vice President Dick Cheney, justified the request by claiming to the Education Week reporter, “The last recession hit charter schools pretty significantly” and that the fallout from COVID-19 might adversely affect “private giving to support their operations.”

But in the same article, NPE’s Carol Burris pointed out that “charter schools have had no drop in the funding stream” as a result of the pandemic, because state funding for both charter schools and school districts has already been set for the current academic year.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Vouchers

NAEP Scores Drop in History, Civics: DeVos Blames Public Schools, Not NCLB, RTTT, ESSA, CCSS

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2020 //
9

The National Center for Education Statistics released NAEP scores in history and geography, which declined, and in civics, which were flat.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos went into her customary rant against public schools, but the real culprit is a failed federal policy of high-stakes testing narrowly focused on reading and math. If DeVos were able to produce data to demonstrate that scores on the same tests were rising for the same demographic groups in charter schools and voucher schools, she might be able to make an intelligent point, but all she has is her ideological hatred of public schools.

After nearly 20 years of federal policies of high-stakes testing, punitive accountability, and federal funding of school choice, the results are in. The “reforms” mandated by No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Every Student Succeeds Act, as well as the federally-endorsed (Gates-funded) Common Core, have had no benefit for American students.

Enough!

When the ESSA comes up for reauthorization, it should be revised. The standardized testing mandate should be eliminated. The original name—the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—should replace the fanciful and delusional title (NCLB, ESSA), since we now know that the promise of “no child left behind” was fake, as was the claim that “every student succeeds” by complying with federally mandated testing.

Restore also the original purpose of the act in 1965: EQUITY. That is, financial help for the schools that enroll the poorest children, so they can have small classes, experienced teachers, a full curriculum including the arts and recess, a school nurse, a library and librarian, a psychologist and social worker.

Here is the report from Politico Morning Education:

MANY STUDENTS ARE STRUGGLING’: Average scores for eighth-graders on the Nation’s Report Card declined in U.S. history and geography between 2014 and 2018 while scores in civics remained flat, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The results follow disappointing scores for math and reading released in October.

— “The results provided here indicate that many students are struggling to understand and explain the importance of civic participation, how American government functions, the historical significance of events, and the need to grasp and apply core geographic concepts,” stated Peggy G. Carr, the associate commissioner of assessment at NCES, which runs the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, known as The Nation’s Report Card.

— The digitally based assessments were administered from January to March 2018 to a nationally representative sample of eighth-graders from about 780 schools. The results are available at nationsreportcard.gov. They will be discussed at a livestreamed event, beginning at 1:30 p.m.

— Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, in a statement, said “America’s antiquated approach to education is creating a generation of future leaders who will not have a foundational understanding of what makes this country exceptional. We cannot continue to excuse this problem away. Instead, we need to fundamentally rethink education in America

Open the link to find links to the NAEP reports.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civics, Common Core, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Education Reform, Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Failure, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, History, NAEP, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Vouchers

Heritage Foundation’s “National Coronavirus Task Force” Recommends Universal Vouchers and Uncertified Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2020 //
14

Talk about taking advantage of a crisis!

The rightwing extremist Heritage Foundation has issued its own report on how to recover from the pandemic. They cover it with patriotic glitz to make it appear like a government report, which it is not. It calls itself the “National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. But it is just a self-aggrandizing report from a rightwing think tank funded by the usual suspects.

The Task Force consists of people who share the Heritage view that government is evil, as are public schools.

Tucked into its recommendations is this: eliminate public schools and certified teachers.

That will help America sink back at least a century in educating its children, perhaps even two centuries.

Perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that the lead person on education was Kevin P. Chavous, CEO of the notorious for-profit K-12 Inc. online charter chain, noted for high attrition, low graduation rates, and low test scores–and above all, high profits! In 2019, Chavous’s total compensation was $4.3 million for his estimable services. But in the nature of for-profit enterprises, there are always new worlds to conquer, new markets to open up.

On page 5:

The Commission recommends that states help families return to work with access to K–12 education by making existing education funding student-centered and portable. Many parents and guardians who now find themselves in charge of teaching and monitoring their children’s educations are unable to access the public schools they pay for through their taxes and are looking for continuity in their children’s education. States should immediately restructure per-pupil K–12 education funding to provide education savings ac- counts (ESAs) to families, enabling them to access their child’s share of state per-pupil funding to pay for online courses, online tutors, curriculum, and textbooks so that their children can continue learning. Students are currently unable to enter the K–12 public schools their parents’ taxes support. They should be able to access a portion of those funds for the remainder of the school year in the form of an ESA. Parents would receive a por- tion of their child’s per-pupil public school funding in a restricted-use account that they could then can use to pay for any education-related service, product, or provider of choice. Additionally, state restrictions on teacher certification should be lifted immediately to free the supply of online teachers and tutors, allowing anyone with a bachelor’s degree to provide K–12 in- struction online. Research suggests that there is little if any difference in student academic outcomes between teachers who are traditionally certified, alternative- ly certified, or not certified at all. States should work with school districts to reopen districts based on data about where the disease is prevalent or waning. Deci- sions about whether to keep schools closed should be medically determined by zip code, tied to districts. Dis- tricts that have low incident rates should begin plans to
reopen, and all school districts should have emergency response plans (including quick transitions to online learning) if they are forced to close again.

The Commission recommends that states remove occupational licensing requirements. States have im- posed numerous occupational licensing requirements that in many instances are simply artificial barriers to entry that can inhibit individuals’ ability to pursue en- trepreneurial work. These should be eliminated. Simi- larly, states should extend reciprocity so that licensed individuals in one state are not subject to additional requirements in the new state. Eliminating or signifi- cantly reducing occupational licensing requirements can help to get people back to work and can also provide a state with access to individuals with high-demand skills. For example, Massachusetts created a one-day approval process to license doctors with out-of-state licenses as a means to expand access to medical care in response to the virus.

Peter Greene also saw this phony “commission report” that pretends to be an official document but is just another anti-government, anti-public school self-aggrandizing piece of propaganda.

He writes:

While Trump has announced a variety of groups he wants to gather together to charter a pandemic recovery for the nation, there’s one group that is already on the job– and their plans for public education suck.

The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission– doesn’t that sound grand? It sounds like a real official government thing, only it isn’t, exactly. It’s the project of the Heritage Foundation, a right-tilted thinky tank that has been a major policy player in DC since the days of Ronald Reagan.

He notes the presence of one Kevin P. Chavous, who has made good money by running with the rightwing crowd, a sector not known for their devotion to racial equality and civil rights.

Well, look. It’s Kevin Chavous, the big cheese at K12, the 800 pound gorilla of the cyber school world, the one funded by junk bond king Michael Milken and founded by a McKinsey alum (anoter early investor– Dick DeVos). They’ve had more than their share of messes (like the time the NCAA decided K12 credits don’t count). But the Trump administration has been good times for them. And Chavous used to help run the American Federation for Children, Betsy DeVos’s dark money ed reform group, from which he called for the privatization of post-Katrina New Orleans education. Do I need to add that he has no actual education background?

Want a reason to vote for Joe Biden? Read the Heritage Foundation report with their plans for a dark future.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, K12 Inc., Online Education, Privatization, Vouchers
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