Archives for category: Betsy DeVos
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Peter Greene on Arne Duncan’s April Fools Day Joke

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2018 //
13

Peter Greene does his very best close reading of Arne Duncan’s bizarre article in The Washington Post in which he insists that his policies have NOT failed, contrary to the evidence and public opinion.

He begins:

Lately, a wave of apostasy has swept through Reformsylvania, and reformsters have stepped up to say that ed reform kind of, well, failed. Yesterday, just in time for April Fools Day, former secretary of education Arne Duncan (and current thinky tank fixture) took to the pages of the Washington Postto try his hand at some non-reality-based history and argue that ed reform has been a resounding success.

How has he managed this feat? Well, there are several tricks.

This damn guy

First, move the goalposts. All the way back to 1971. Fourth grade math and reading scores on the NAEP are up since then!! Why focus on fourth grade scores? Maybe because 17-year-old scores haven’t really moved much at all. And of course, reform hasn’t been in place since 1971– and most of that growth happened before modern ed reform ever took hold– you know, prior to those days when Secretary Duncan was explaining that American schools actually sucked? And all of this assumes that a single standardized math a reading score is a good proxy for the quality of the entire educational system.

Duncan has an explanation for those flat 12th grade scores– because the graduation rate is up, more weak students are taking the NAEP, and so keeping the scores flat is a win. Yay? Anyway, graduation rates are up, so that’s more proof of ed reform success, except that, of course, whether those diplomas actually mean anything other than districts have learned how to game the system with credit recovery and other baloney– well, never mind. There’s probably some real gain there, and that’s not a bad thing. The numbers are up, so woohoo…

[His] notion that test-based accountability “revealed” achievement gaps is baloney. Educators knew where the gaps were. We’ve4 always known where the gaps were. We’ve screamed about the gaps. I don’t believe any teacher in this country picked up test results and said, “I’ll be damned! I had no idea these non-white, non-wealthy students were having trouble keeping up!” At best, test-based accountability was a tool to convince policy makers who would listen to data spreadsheets before they would listen to teachers. And even then, policy makers didn’t look at the data and say, “Well, we’d better help these schools out.” Instead, all the way up to Duncan’s office, they responded with, “Well, let’s target this school for closure or conversion or a growth opportunity for some charter operators.”

This, it turns out, is another thing Arne “Katrina’s Destruction of NOLA Public Ed Is a Great Thing” Duncan counts as success- three million students in charter school. He cites Boston as a win (again, debateable) but ignores the widespread fraud, corruption and failure that charters have been prone to nationally…

Duncan has tried a variety of history rewrites for his administration (only politicians hated Common Core! charter school magic unleashed! ESSA was not a reaction against his work! CCSS should have been rolled out faster!) But all of his reflections stumble over the same problem– Duncan simply refuses to acknowledge the damage that his policies have done to public education. Here he is acting puzzled again–

[Duncan wrote:] Some have taken the original idea of school choice — as laboratories of innovation that would help all schools improve — and used it to defund education, weaken unions and allow public dollars to fund private schools without accountability.

No, Arne! Not “some.” Not some faceless mysterious group of folks. You. You and the people that you empowered and encouraged and cheered on and backed with your policies. You did that.

Well, as we have come to expect, Peter is right on target.

Charter schools are the gateway to vouchers. It is now widely understood that Arne Duncan and his friends paved the way for Betsy DeVos and her all-out war on  public schools. That is now widely recognized, even if Duncan doesn’t admit it.

Reform is failing, failing, failing. The public is wise to the reformers’ real goal, which is to privatize public schools and disparage teachers instead of confronting the real issues of poverty and segregation.

And nothing that Arne writes here changes that fact.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Privatization, Testing

Wisconsin: State Eager to Deregulate and Demoralize Teachers

By dianeravitch
March 29, 2018 //
23

Sorry but this post was deleted due to political pressure on the author.

 

 

Categories ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Koch Brothers, Teachers and Teaching

Journey For Justice and Its Fight Against Destructive Education “Reform”

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2018 //
7

 

The Schott Foundation is one of the few philanthropies that unabashedly supports public education and recognizes its importance in a democracy. Schott has supported the civil rights group, Journey for Justice, whose leader Jitu Brown has a powerful voice. (Jitu is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.)

Schott underwrote the production of a video about the work of J4J. 

“Schott grantee partner Journey for Justice Alliance released a compelling short documentary chronicling the fight against education reform in the age of Trump and DeVos. Beyond the rhetoric coming from DC, for years Journey for Justice has been raising the voices of those most impacted by budget cuts and privatization. Following J4J’s cross-country trip from Detroit to Washington, D.C. to oppose Betsy DeVos’ appointment as Education Secretary in early 2017, this film not only shows the profound hurt that these policy changes cause, but the inspiring organizing done to resist them.

“As J4J National Director Jitu Brown is led away from the Senate hearing room, he says “it’s an act of cowardice to run toward privatization and away from equity. We are as far away from Brown v. Board as we were in 1957.”

“Film Description:

“Many are voicing concerns that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is unqualified, motivated by profit, and advancing a harmful agenda.

“Over a year ago, we organized a group of parents, educators, and students to travel from Detroit to Washington to raise their voices at DeVos’ confirmation hearing. We came to advocate for a public education system based on equity and democracy. We came because we had already lived with the consequences of policies that undermine those values, policies that DeVos had advocated for in Michigan. We came to speak truth to power and we were silenced—shut out.

“Please watch and share this 30 minute documentary made by 180.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, Equity, Justice, Privatization

Carol Burris: Republicans Try to Pull a Fast One, with Vouchers for Military Families

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2018 //
8

 

Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, writes here about an alarming development. Republicans want to use Impact Aid to provide vouchers for military families, who don’t want them.

Impact Aid is funding provided to school districts whose tax base has been reduced because of the loss of tax revenues due to the presence of federal facilities.

What is Impact Aid?

“Many local school districts across the United States include within their boundaries parcels of land that are owned by the Federal Government or that have been removed from the local tax rolls by the Federal Government, including Indian lands. These school districts face special challenges — they must provide a quality education to the children living on the Indian and other Federal lands and meet the requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act, while sometimes operating with less local revenue than is available to other school districts, because the Federal property is exempt from local property taxes.

“Since 1950, Congress has provided financial assistance to these local school districts through the Impact Aid Program. Impact Aid was designed to assist local school districts that have lost property tax revenue due to the presence of tax-exempt Federal property, or that have experienced increased expenditures due to the enrollment of federally connected children, including children living on Indian lands. The Impact Aid law (now Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA)) provides assistance to local school districts with concentrations of children residing on Indian lands, military bases, low-rent housing properties, or other Federal properties and, to a lesser extent, concentrations of children who have parents in the uniformed services or employed on eligible Federal properties who do not live on Federal property.

”Over 93 percent of the $1.3 billion appropriated for FY 2016 is targeted for payment to school districts based on an annual count of federally connected school children. Slightly more than 5 percent assists school districts that have lost significant local assessed value due to the acquisition of property by the Federal Government since 1938. More than $17 million is available for formula construction grants.”

Burris writes:

”Thirty Republican U.S. congressmen and three Republican U.S. senators have signed onto national voucher bills that would direct federal tax dollars from public schools (perhaps your public school) and let military families use these funds for religious schools, private schools, online schools, college tuition and other educational services.

“What is most remarkable is that the bills are moving forward in the face of significant military family opposition.

“The Military Child Education Coalition, the Military Impacted Schools Association, the Military Officers Association of America, and the National Military Family Association all oppose the idea of taking federal money from the public schools that over 80 percent of all military families use, to give vouchers to a few.

“But despite opposition to these bills by key organizations dedicated to the needs of military families, HR 5199 and S. 2517, have the full support of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.”

Please read the article in full. Then, email your Congressman or Senator and Express your views.

 

Categories Betsy DeVos

Watch Members of Congress Try to Get DeVos to Answer “Yes” or “No”

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2018 //
22

 

This 6-Minute video is worth your time. Watch frustrated Members of the House Appropriations Committee (not the Senate) try to get Betsy DeVos to answer questions with a “yes” or “no.”

She tries to snow them with long-winded, evasive answers. They ask again and again. She smiles as she bobs and weaves. She is neither stupid nor incompetent. She is evasive. She is evasive because she doesn’t want to admit her real intentions.

The first questioner, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, is the Democratic leader of the Committee. When Democrats were in control, she was chair of the committee. She wants to know why DeVos is pre-emptying states that are trying to protect their college students from predatory debt collectors. She has DeVos over a barrel. Does DeVos support the right of states to write stronger consumer protections than the federal government, which under a DeVos is eliminating those protections? DeLauro demands a yes or no.

This battle of wills is fierce.

When you see how haughty and arrogant DeVos is in responding to the Committee that oversees appropriations for her Department, you will understand why 99% of the DeVos budget was rejected by Congress.

Another member of the Committee wanted to know whether private schools receiving federal dollars would be required to respect the rights of LGBT students. That’s another tug of war. Getting zdeVos to answer a straightforward question with a one word answer is like pulling teeth. The DeVos Family foundations support anti-gay organizations, and her mother and brother Erik Prince were founders and major donors to the Family Research Council. No doubt she has thought of a way to weasel out of that commitment. The last thing she would ever do is tell an evangelical school that to remove its ban on LGBT students.

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Student Financial Aid and Student Debt

EdWeek: Congress Rejects Trump-DeVos Education Budget Proposals

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2018 //
11

 

EdWeek reports that Congress’s new budget ignored the funding proposals by the Trump administration’s to slash education spending and shift large sums of money to choice. 

Congratulations to a bipartisan coalition in a congress that stopped Trump and DeVos from performing radical surgery on useful federal programs.

“Lawmakers sent a message to President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in their bill to fund the federal government: We’re not the biggest fans of your big education ideas.

“Congress would increase spending at the U.S. Department of Education by $2.6 billion over previously enacted levels in fiscal year 2018, up to $70.9 billion, under a new omnibus spending bill that could finally resolve a months-long logjam on Capitol Hill.

“In addition, funding for Title I, the biggest pot of federal money for public schools, which is earmarked for disadvantaged students, would increase by $300 million from fiscal 2017 enacted spending, up to $15.8 billion.

“The fiscal 2018 spending bill, released late Wednesday, doesn’t contain several key changes sought by Trump in his first budget plan. In fact, Trump’s budget plan for fiscal 2018 would have cut discretionary education spending by $9.2 billion. So Congress’ bill is a significant rebuke of sorts to the president’s education vision.

“In fact, the spending bill leaves out a $250 million private school choice initiative the president and DeVos sought, as well as a $1 billion program designed to encourage open enrollment in districts.

“Title II, which provides professional development to educators, would be flat-funded at roughly $2.1 billion. The Trump budget pitch for fiscal 2018 eliminated Title II entirely—it was the single biggest cut to K-12 Trump sought for fiscal 2018. And Title IV, a block grant for districts that can fund a diverse set of needs from school safety to ed-tech, would receive $1.1 billion, a big increase from its curent funding level of $400 million. Trump also sought to eliminate Title IV.

“Funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers would rise up by $20 million up to $1.2 billion; that’s another program the Trump budget proposal axed. In addition, special education grants would go up by $299 million to $13.1 billion. And federal aid to charter schools would increase to $400 million, a $58 million boost…

”The top Senate Democrat for education, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, praised the bipartisan agreement to dismiss the “extreme ideas to privatize our nation’s public schools and dismantle the Department of Education” from DeVos.”

Too bad that the federal government will put more money into charters. Democrats still fail to realize the dangers of privatization posed by privately managed charters, which take public money but fight accountability and oversight. Nor do they seem alarmed that public schools are being eliminated in cities like Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Funding, Privatization, Supporting public schools, Trump, U.S. Department of Education

Center for American Progress: The Highly Negative Effects of Vouchers

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2018 //
48

 

The Center for American Progress published a useful review of voucher research, which concludes that going to a voucher school is equivalent to losing 1/3 of a year of schooling. Over the past year or so, I have posted the individual studies of vouchers as they appeared, and it is helpful to have them summarized in one place.

The authors of this research review—Ulrich Boser, Meg Bender, and Erin Roth—are senior analysts at CAP. They have done a good job in pulling together the many studies and analyzing the negative effects of vouchers on children. Researchers do not agree on the wisdom of converting test score gains or losses into “days of learning,” a strategy invented by researchers at CREDO, but the authors here use the device against the choice advocates who use it to bash public schools.

CAP is a puzzle to me. Throughout the Obama years, it was a safe haven and cheerleading squad for everything associated with the Obama administration, including the failed, odious, and ineffective Race to the Top.

As this carefully researched paper makes clear, CAP opposes vouchers. But where is CAP on charters? Is it still defending the Obama-Duncan line that school choice is good and traditional public schools are not? Is it willing to do the same research-based review of charters that it did of vouchers?

Does CAP still believe in school choice? Does it support half of the Trump-DeVos agenda? Or will it help return the Democratic Party to its roots by acknowledging the importance of strong public schools, democratically governed, subject to state and federal laws, doors open to all?

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Democrats, Privatization, Race to the Top, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

DeVos’ School Safety Commission is a Sham: No Students or Educators Included

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2018 //
48

 

Betsy DeVos has been put in charge of a task force to make recommendations on school safety. The only members are Cabinet members. No students, teachers, principals, or Superintendents will be on the task force or commission. Anyone who has worked in the federal government will tell you that Cabinet members are very busy people, and they are surrounded by yes-men and -women and assistants and speech writers. In their own domains, they are sovereign. They will give very little time or attention to this sham assignment. This is a farce. Chances are that the report has already been drafted by an NRA member of Betsy’s staff.

Politico reported this morning:

WHY TRUMP’S SCHOOL SAFETY COMMISSION OMITS STUDENTS, TEACHERS: The new White House commission on school safety will consist of just four Cabinet secretaries – prompting concerns from parents, students, teachers and school administrators who feel they should play a bigger role. But the Trump administration says it’s about getting to work quickly.

– Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday testified during a hearing of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees education funding. While she was there to discuss the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal, she offered new details about the commission’s makeup. DeVos will chair the commission, which was recently unveiled by the White House in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month that left 17 people dead. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will join her, she told lawmakers.

– “Is that it? Just four Cabinet secretaries? No experts? No Democrats?” asked Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). DeVos replied, “This is an urgent matter and we want to ensure that we’re able to move and operate as quickly as possible and without getting bogged down by a lot of bureaucracy.”

– What does DeVos mean by “bureaucracy”? Keeping the commission to just four federal officials who have jurisdiction over school safety issues means the group can “get up and running as quickly as possible,” said Education Department spokeswoman Liz Hill.

– “Advisory commissions with non-Federal employees have to follow Federal Advisory Committee Act rules, which adds significant bureaucratic bloat,” Hill said in a statement. “FACA imposes many bureaucratic hurdles, such as requiring a charter that must be approved by the General Services Administration and the appointment of an Agency Committee Management Officer and a Designated Federal Officer, as well as other requirements that would delay the start of this important effort.”

– Input from students, parents and teachers “will be critical,” Hill added. “The Commission will receive input from and hold meetings over the coming weeks and months with students, parents, teachers, schools safety personnel, administrators, law enforcement officials, mental health professionals, school counselors and others holding a wide variety of views.”

– Still, education groups want to ensure they’re heard. “It is critical that parents have a seat at the table whenever decisions are made that impact their children, and particularly on the critical issue of school safety,” said Jim Accomando, president of National PTA, which represents parent-teacher associations nationwide.

– “As school building leaders, principals must be heard on school safety and student well-being issues,” said L. Earl Franks, executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals. Noelle Ellerson Ng, associate executive director for policy and advocacy at AASA, The School Superintendents Association, said that “by keeping it only to Cabinet members, it’s necessarily political … I would venture a guess that the commission described by Secretary DeVos today isn’t set it up to be super productive.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Fraud, Guns in Schools, Safety

Mitchell Robinson: Why Schools Are Not Like Uber or Lyft, or, the Hoax of “Choice”

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2018 //
21

 

Betsy DeVos thinks that school choice is just swell. After all, she said, people should be able to choose schools the way they choose modes of transportation, like hailing an Uber or Lyft instead of a licensed taxi.

Mitchell Robinson explains why she is wrong. 

A professor of music education at Michigan State University, Robinson knows that school choice has not improved education in DeVos’s state. It has actually been a bust. Not only has it failed to improve education, it has played havoc with district budgets.

The point of choice is choice, with no discernible benefits other than investors.

 

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Failure, Funding, Michigan, Privatization, School Choice

Tom Ultican: Leader of “Destroy Public Education” Group in Indianapolis Will Go National

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2018 //
5

 

Tom Ultican shows how The Mind Trust has dutifully implemented the rightwing agenda in Indianapolis. Fattened with big contributions from far-right foundations, the Mind Trust has done  a thorough job of undermining public education in that city. Now its leader, David Harris, has decided to create yet another national corporate reform organization, having established his bona fides with the Walton Family Foundation and the Arnold Foundation. Walton loves charters and hates unions. Ex-Enron John Arnold loves charters and hates public sector pensions.

Republicans in the State Capitol must love David Harris. He cleverly uses his Democratic credentials to pursue the Trump-DeVos-Pence agenda of privatization.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Indiana, Indianapolis, Privatization, Walton Foundation
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