Here is an outline of Trump’s budget proposal, which is actually Mick Mulvany’s budget.
Deficits forever.
More spending for the military.
Deep cuts to domestic programs.
Deep cuts for education but $1 Billion for School Choice.
Call your Congressman or woman.
Call your Senators.
Shoot it down.
This from Politico this morning:
Open the post for the links. DeVos is having lunch with Trump and Pence today. Apparently that is the only event on Trump’s not-busy calendar. He will spend the rest of the day watching TV.
By Kimberly Hefling | 02/12/2018 10:00 AM EDT
With help from Caitlin Emma, Mel Leonor, Michael Stratford and Benjamin Wermund
BUDGET DAY TO SHOWCASE EDUCATION WISH LIST: The release of the administration’s first full-fledged budget proposal later this morning will spotlight President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ priorities for 2018 and 2019. On the higher education front, we already know the White House will suggest broadening eligibility for Pell grants, tweaking requirements for trade licensing and growing apprenticeships in its $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan in an effort to boost workforce training.
– Last year, the Trump administration called for a $9.2 billion, or 13 percent, cut to department spending – cuts congressional appropriators largely ignored. Administration officials indicate they will propose drastic reductions to nondefense programs in today’s blueprint, meaning education programs are likely to see proposed cuts yet again.
– A big caveat: Congress raised the strict caps on how much the government can spend in the next two years when it passed its fiscal package, H.R. 1892 (115), early Friday amid the overnight government shutdown. As POLITICO’s Sarah Ferris has reported, Congress is even less likely to pay attention to the president’s funding request because it was written before the budget deal was reached. That’s important to keep in mind – especially in light of the inclusion of a $2 billion boost to higher education each of the next two years that congressional leaders agreed last week to spend.
– The White House said it would release an “addendum” to its proposal reflecting the raised spending caps because it was too late to rewrite the document. We’ll be watching closely to see how that affects education spending.
– The budget request will land at 11:30 a.m. and the Education Department has a 2 p.m. conference call to discuss it.
– Here are some things to watch for:
– School choice: Last year, support for school choice in Trump’s proposed budget came at a cost. The president proposed big and unpopular cuts across the K-12 spectrum, on everything from teacher training to after-school programs. But he also proposed about $1 billion to encourage public school choice, $250 million for private school choice and a 50 percent boost for charter schools. Education policy watchers are watching to see whether similar priorities – and cuts – are pitched for K-12 programs. House and Senate GOP appropriators largely rejected the school choice proposals, although they did vote to give a small boost to charter schools – just not at the level the administration wanted.
– STEM: Trump last year issued an executive order directing DeVos to spend at least $200 million in existing grant funds per year on the promotion of high-quality STEM education and, in particular, on computer science education. Education Innovation and Research grants could be one place where the Trump administration signals that priority.
– Career and technical education funding. Trump called for more vocational schools in his State of the Union address, and has repeatedly touted career and technical education since taking office. That didn’t stop his administration from proposing a more than $1 billion cut last year to the programs that support the type of vocational education he says he wants to bolster and expand.
– Education Department workforce reductions: The Trump administration has taken steps to streamline government agencies, including efforts to cut personnel. In recent months, 69 Education Department employees accepted buyout offers. The budget blueprint may spell out proposals for additional workforce cuts.
– School infrastructure funding: There have been no indications that the administration will include funds for crumbling school buildings in its infrastructure push, but many public school advocates have been pushing hard for a share and will be watching to see if any of the funds are targeted for K-12 upgrades.
– Student aid programs. Higher ed watchers are looking to see if the administration will again call for deep cuts , including cutting $3.9 billion from the Pell grant surplus and eliminating entirely the $733 million Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, which provides grants to help low-income students attend college. Last year, it also called for cuts the TRIO and Gear Up programs, which help low-income students prepare for college. House and Senate appropriators mostly ignored these recommendations, although appropriations committees in both chambers did agree to cut billions from the Pell grant surplus.
– Early education: The Trump administration cited insufficient Head Start Funding for its decision last month to waive an Obama-era rule requiring Head Start centers to offer full-day preschool year-round to at least half of their students by next summer. Preschool supporters are watching to see if the administration will again propose no funding increases for Head Start. Last year, the administration also proposed axing the Preschool Development Grants program, which Congress created in the Every Student Succeeds Act to target 4-year-olds from low- and moderate-income families – a recommendation rejected by congressional appropriators.
I write this post with a mixture of joy and sadness. And exhilaration!
I have been blogging every day for five years. I post whatever interests me and whatever I think will interest you. I confess to being compulsive because I blog with passion and zeal. I have blogged in elevators and taxis, while waiting on a line or in the middle of the night. I have written nearly 20,000 posts, and you have sent me nearly half a million comments.
I won’t stop blogging, but I will try to limit myself to no more than one post a day. I will post every day at 9. I will have the best of the best (in my opinion) every day. If there is breaking or important news, I will post again. When there is a big event or election, I will post. I will post short items of importance, just a link, when I must. I will keep tweeting.
When NPE endorses a candidate, you will hear from me. When one of the supporters of public education scores a win for democracy and the common good, you will hear from me. We have to keep winning elections.
I am not going anywhere but I will spend more time working on the book than blogging.
If I can encourage you to write a letter to the editor, run for office, speak out at a public meeting, you can bet I will. I will insist that you get out to vote and get your friends to vote too.
The reason I am stepping back is that I have a contract with my publisher, Knopf, the most distinguished publishing house in America, with the best editor in America, Victoria Wilson. Knopf published and Wilson edited my last, most important book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to Our Public Schools. I am going to write a new book about the growing and powerful resistance to privatization. I will rely on what I have learned from you —as I have traveled, as I have blogged, as I have read your comments here, as I have followed your work on behalf of the common good.
Of course, I will write about the BATS, Journey for Justice, the SOS groups, the battling unions, the legal battles, the electoral victories, the battles by parents against data mining, Class Size Matters, the historic defeat of Question 2 in Massachusetts last November, the historic court decision in the Vergara Case, the Pastors for Texas Children, the NAACP, the fight against vouchers, the resistance in many, many states by brave parents and teachers. And of course, the Network for Public Education, which was created five years ago by Anthony Cody and me to build and support the resistance. (Speaking of which, plan to join us at the NPE Annual Conference in Indiana on October 20-21. There will be more details on the NPE website.)
I’m not signing off. You will hear from me less often. You will get fewer posts. You will get shorter posts.
This is what I need from you: tell me what is happening in your state to fight for public education. Tell me which groups are fighting back against the malefactors of wealth and the peddlers of privatization. Tell me about your wins.
The fight continues. I have a strong sense that the tide is turning. I am not giving up, and neither should you. There is much good news to share. Books reflect the world and books can change the world. All of us acting together are changing it right now. I have never been more hopeful about the future. I want to gather the hope and inspiration that you have generated and use it to inspire even greater activism to defeat the stale and dying status quo.
Help me write this important next book. Share your stories. Help me stop the privatization train, which ran off the rails long ago. I recall being told repeatedly a few years ago that it was useless to resist because the train had left the station. When they said that, they never said where the train was heading. Not a good place. Maybe to a steep cliff. Trump and DeVos know. They tell us. The Koch brothers tell us. They want to destroy public schools. They are the “low hanging fruit.” They are driving the train to nowhere, and the “low hanging fruit” are our children.
Friends, together we are telling them that their plan to destroy our public schools is not going to happen.
It. Is. NOT. Going. To. Happen. We will show them what democracy looks like.
Keep me informed about your community, your state. They have money. We have numbers. Together, we will save our schools, our children, and our democracy.
You have to hand it to Betsy DeVos. She never gives up on a bad idea, no matter what the evidence shows. With clear findings that vouchers don’t produce better results, with increasing numbers of charter frauds, and declining enthusiasm for charter schools, she does not waver in her commitment to destroy public education. No matter how much damage she inflicts on children, she pushes forward with her failed libertarian theories because she is “doing it for the kids.”
And now, DeVos puts Backpack funding in place in a federal pilot:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2018/02/essa_weighted_student_funding_pilot_devos.html
“DeVos and her team have been especially interested in the pilot, pretty much from the time they took office. That could be because, in theory, adopting a weighted student funding formula could make it easier for districts to operate school choice programs, since money would be tied to individual students and could therefore follow them to charter or virtual public schools. Importantly, though, districts that opt to participate in the pilot don’t necessarily have to use it to further school choice.”
My advice: if you get the money, spend it where kids have teachers are certified to meet the needs of children with disabilities and children learning English.
Choice that busts up the public schools does not help children. Itcadvances the long term goals of libertarian zealots like the DeVos family and the Koch brothers.
For many years, the Wall Street Journal has been a champion for vouchers in its editorial columns. Its news columns, however, are written by reporters who (usually) don’t have a rightwing agenda to sell. The WSJ posted an article about vouchers in Milwaukee, the nation’s longest running voucher program.
The bottom line is that they don’t make a difference. Voucher students do no better than students in public schools.
But there is an exception, as voucher advocate Patrick Wolf of the Walton-funded University of Arkansas Department of Educational Reform explains. When high-end voucher schools limit the number of voucher students they take and are willing to subsidize the large difference between their tuition and the state payment, the students benefit. How many private and religious schools are willing to do that? As the article says, the vast majority of voucher schools have large numbers of voucher students and rely on low tuition to survive, and they fill their poorly resourced schools with voucher students.
Read the article here.
In the case of the money-hungry DeVos family, you find what they care about by what they invest in. Or invested in.
PR watch reviewed the list a year ago.
She had big investments in student debt collection. That’s a money maker.
Why does a billionaire need more? That’s above my pay grade. What do you think?
Steven Singer reviews a new report from the Center for Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. This is a Gates-funded think tank whose belief is that the best way to “reinvent” public schools is to privatize them.
The charter sector had been booming but this past year, the boom fizzled. What once seemed to be an unstoppable steam roller, intent on crushing public schools, has slowed to a crawl.
The problems, says the report, are real estate cost, teacher shortages, and political backlash.
Singer writes:
“How did the hippest new thing to hit education since the chalk board suddenly hit such a wall? After all, it wasn’t so long ago that every celebrity from Magic Johnson to Andre Agassi to Deion Sanders to Sean “Puffy” Combs to Pitt Bull had their own charter school. Even Oprah Winfrey, the queen of multimedia, donated millions to charter networks in Louisiana, California, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas and her home state of Illinois.
“How could something with so much high profile support be running out of gas?
“The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has a theory.
“The charter school funded think tank (read: propaganda network) released a report boiling the issue down to three factors: real estate costs, a teacher shortage and political backlash.
“Real estate costs? Yes, few public schools want to offer you public property to put your privately run school that will inevitably gobble up a good portion of its funding and turn a portion of that into profit for private investors.
“Teacher shortage? Yes, when you pay your educators the least, don’t allow your employees to unionize, and demand high hours without remuneration, you tend to find it harder than most educational institutions to find people willing to work for you.
“Political backlash? DING! DING! DING!
“Of course, most people who aren’t paid by the charter school industry – as those working for CRPE are – would simply call this a charter school backlash – not political, at all.
“This isn’t one political party seeking advantage over another. It’s concerned citizens from both sides of the aisle worried about the practices of the charter school industry.”
Singer’s post includes some nifty charts. Be sure to open it.
The bottom line is that the bloom is off the rose.
The public is beginning to understand that charter schools are meant to destabilize their community public schools. They take away money meant for the public schools. They take the students they want and exclude those they don’t want. They open and close like day lilies. The for-profits are interested in profit, not education.
And it destroys their reputation when the public knows that Trump, DeVos, Wall Street, and the Koch brothers are leading the charge to destroy what belongs to the entire community.
Resist!
The New York Times is a great newspaper. It is the most influential newspaper in the world. It has great reporters and opinion writers.
But, sadly, the New York Times has one glaring deficiency: its editorials on education echo the greedy, free-market views of Betsy DeVos and the Koch brothers.
One person, Brent Staples, has written almost every education editorial for many years. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago. He is a brilliant man with a libertarian blind spot. Perhaps he studied under Milton Friedman or one of his mentees.
Whatever the case, the editorials of the Times sound as if they were written by the public relations staff of Charles Koch or Betsy DeVos.
New York Times: The time has come to decide which side you are on: those who care for the common good or those who believe in me first.
Note to the New York Times: defend democracy, not the plutocrats and privatization.
Ever wonder why the Koch brothers want to quash environmental regulations? Why they support ALEC, which writes model legislation for states to deregulate corporations? Why they are in an alliance with far-right titans like the DeVos family?
Ever wondered how they made their wealth?
This article, published in 2014 by Rolking Stone, answers your questions.
This article by Carol Burris was published in January but it remains as pertinent as ever.
Tell this to your friends and neighbors:
It is time we have an honest discussion about the true cost of school choice. It is a policy with steep fiscal consequences for our communities and our nation. Here is what every taxpayer should know:
Billions of federal tax dollars have poured into charter school promotion, without regard for success and with insufficient oversight.
By 2015, the federal government spent more than $3.7 billion to boost the charter sector — with millions wasted on financing “ghost schools” that never opened. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Michigan spent $3.7 million of its federal dollars on 25 “ghost” schools. In California, more than $4.7 million federal dollars went to charter schools that shut down in a few years. And the flow has not stopped. In 2016, the federal government poured another $333 million to push charter schools, yet put forth no reforms to prevent waste. The same year the Department of Education’s own Inspector General warned of “the current and emerging risk” that is posed by charter management organizations for fraud and abuse.
Some charter schools spend more tax dollars on administration and less on teaching.
Most taxpayers want their tax dollars to go to the classroom for teaching and learning. Yet time and again, some charters spent far more than public schools on administration. In 2014-2015, Arizona charter schools spent over $128 million more than Arizona public schools on management costs. One charter chain, Basis, spent nearly $12 million on administrative costs in one year, for fewer than 9000 students — all hidden from public review.
When the latest federal study of D.C. voucher schools showed that students who take a voucher go backwards, not forward, Betsy DeVos responded that it didn’t matter. She said that when choice is fully implemented, all sectors–public, charter, and voucher–will get the same results.
Some investment! Divide up the money, undermine public schools (that take the neediest kids), and get the same results in all sectors.
Diane Ravitch's blog 