Mercedes Schneider has the story. Slanders is stepping down.
BREAKING: NM Ed Comm. Hanna Skandera Gives Her Two-Weeks Notice
Will she join Betsy DeVos in D.C.?
Skanndera is close to Jeb Bush and akin to DeVos in ideology.
Archives for category: Betsy DeVos
I confess. I didn’t watch Betsy DeVos testify. I didn’t want to. No one pays me to blog every day, so I have some discretion in how I use my time. What I did instead, which was very taxing, was to watch preview DVDs on the PBS special “School Inc.,” because I have been invited to tape a response for Channel 13, New York City’s PBS station. It is worse than anything you anticipated in terms of distortion, inaccuracies, slander of public schools, and adulation of the free market. Maybe I should have watched DeVos.
Valerie Strauss did watch DeVos. Here is her report.
She made clear that she would not put any limits on for-profit education companies. She recommended virtual charters to an Alabama senator, although even the charter industry has called out online schools for their poor academic results.
And here is a key quote:
“She was asked repeatedly whether private schools that would be part of the administration’s proposed program to fund and study a new voucher program would be subject to federal discrimination and special education laws, and she repeatedly said, “Schools that receive federal funds must follow federal law.””
As our reader Laura Chapman pointed out in a comment, voucher funds are always defended by the assertion that the public money goes to the family, not the school. Tax credits for vouchers go to corporations who pay for vouchers. Every voucher program operates under the fiction that the public money does not go to the school.
The money is laundered through the family or third parties.
So DeVos is cleverly masking the fact that federal law will not apply to schools that receive federal funds.
It is a three-card Monte game.
I wrote an article for the New York Review of Books about the proposed Trump-DeVos budget.
The whole world needs to know what Trump and DeVos want to do to limit access to college and to undermine public education.
Voucher advocates like to point to Vermont as the nation’s oldest program. When it was started in 1869, it was intended to pay the tuition of students whose town did not have a public school. It has very little in common with the curren voucher movement, which takes its inspiration from the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, who wrote a seminal essay in 1955 proposing that all students should receive vouchers to attend the school of their choice. The group that was fastest to seize upon his ideas was Southern segregationists, who saw school choice as an effective way to keep their schools racially segregated. It took a dozen years until the federal courts and the U.S. Department of Education compelled Southern schools to desegregate their schools.
Meanwhile, Vermont’s voucher program continued undisturbed.
Today as education writer Anne Waldman of ProPublica explains, the voucher program funds a disproportionately large number of students from affluent families who choose expensive private schools, including out-of-state boarding schools like Exeter and Deerfield Academy.
“Vermont’s voucher program is a microcosm of what could happen across the country if school-choice advocates such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos achieve their vision. By subsidizing part of the cost of private schools in or out of state, it broadens options for some Vermonters while diverting students from public education and disproportionately benefiting wealthier families like the Bowmans.
“Vermont vouchers have been used to send students to ski academies, out-of-state art schools and even foreign boarding schools, such as the Sigtunaskolan School in Sweden, whose alumni include Sweden’s current king and former prime minister. Vermont paid more than $40 million in vouchers to more than 60 private schools last year, including more than $1.3 million to out-of-state schools, according to data received from the state’s education agency through a public-records request.
“Of the almost 2,800 Vermonters who use publicly funded vouchers to go to private schools in state, 22.5 percent qualify for free or reduced price lunch, according to state education data. (The data excludes out-of-state private schools.) By contrast, 38.3 percent of public school students in Vermont have family incomes low enough to qualify them for the lunch discount.”
Voucher advocates in other states will insist that they want vouchers for poor black and Hispanic students or for students with disabilities.
Such claims, however, are the first step towards the goal of making vouchers available for everyone.
Vermont sets no income limit for students who choose to use vouchers. However, the vouchers may not be used in religious schools, because the state Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1999.
Betsy DeVos has said many times that she seeks vouchers for every kind of school, including religious schools. Private and religiousschools set their own admissions requirements, so the schools choose the students. Public schools are required by law to accept all students, regardless of race, religion, family income, sexual orientation, language or disability status.
Peter Greene has a genius for taking complicated ideas and boiling them down to their essence in language that everyone can understand. This post is a classic example of that genius. Others have written entire books trying to explain what he says concisely here.
In the recent writings about school choice, pro and con, Peter Greene was especially affronted by a statement from Kevin Chavous, who works for Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children. He said: It is school choice–directly empowering parents to choose the best educational environment for their child–that is the most democratic of ideas.
Nope. Nope nope nopity nope. There are arguments to be made for parent choice, but “it’s the essence of democracy” is not one of them.
Democracy, even the sort-of-democracy practiced by the USA, is not about saying, “I want to make this personal choice, and I want everyone else to pay for it.”
Democracy is not saying you want a six-lane highway to run back the lane where only your house sits, so you get the rest of the taxpayers in your state to pay for it.
Democracy is not saying that since I want to have a police force that patrols my own house 24/7, I should have that police coverage and all local taxpayers should foot the bill.
Democracy is not “My fellow taxpayers have to pay for whatever I decide on my own that I want.”
He adds:
Choice fans often like to talk about the money following the child because “that money doesn’t belong to the school system.” And they have a point– it is not the school’s money. It is also not the family’s money. It is the taxpayers’ money, and the taxpayers have given it to support a system that will educate all students in the community through an institution managed by elected representatives of those taxpayers (when was the last time you saw a school board requirement that only parents can be elected).
And so, my fellow Americans, democracy consists of the consent of the governed, not the requirement to pay for whatever each person wants:
The “most democratic of ideas” is not that each individual gets to live in the Land of Do As You Please at public expense. Vouchers may be many things, but they are not remotely democratic.
When she was questioned by Congress, Betsy DeVos let the cat out of the bag about vouchers.
The U.S. Department of Education will hand out money for vouchers and will not enforce civil rights laws.
“She lifted the curtain on school vouchers and made clear exactly what this system of using taxpayer funds to pay for private and religious schools is.
“It’s a way for some parents, particularly bigots, to get taxpayers to subsidize their attempts to evade or break the law.
“The revelation came during DeVos’s testimony before Congress about President Donald Trump’s proposed new federal budget and that budget’s effect on education.
“DeVos found herself questioned by U.S. Rep. Katharine Clark, D-Massachusetts. Clark inquired about Lighthouse Christian Academy, a voucher school here in Indiana — Bloomington, in fact — that boasts that it will deny admission to students who might be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The school also will deny admission to students who come from homes in which homosexuality or bisexuality is practiced.
“(An aside: Don’t schools and people like this — who go out of their way to demean vulnerable children — really make you proud to be a Hoosier?)
“Clark asked if DeVos would prevent federal funds from going to schools that violate federal law by discriminating against people based on sexual orientation. DeVos tried to duck the question, but, after considerable hemming, hawing and throat-clearing, finally said this was really a parent’s decision, not hers.
“Clark corrected her.
“This really isn’t about parents’ choices, the congresswoman said. It was about whether federal tax money would be used to subsidize policies that violate federal — and, in some cases, basic constitutional — law.
DeVos stood by her answer.
“Clark then asked her if there was any form of discrimination against which DeVos would take a stand. Would the education secretary, for instance, funnel federal tax dollars to a voucher school that discriminated against African-American students?
“DeVos again tried to evade the question.
“Clark pressed.
“DeVos finally uttered a series of non-sequiturs about parents caring about their children and states honoring that as her final answer.
“But she refused to answer the question.
“She couldn’t name a single instance in which she would oppose allowing voucher schools to discriminate against law-abiding American citizens.
“Not one.
“Not. One.”
It’s tempting to write this off as another instance of Betsy DeVos being Betsy DeVos, a billionaire lightweight dilettante trying to pass herself off as a heavyweight expert on education, law and public policy. She certainly isn’t the first person to think wealth is a substitute for study or knowledge.
In this post, Mercedes Schneider tries to explain the ludicrous claim that vouchers are more “democratic” that public schools controlled by elected school boards.
The choice advocates contend that letting parents choose their child’s school is the height of democracy. They do not admit that the schools choose their students, and some will slam their doors to students who don’t fit.
Now with Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education, the nation has a choice zealot in the bully pulpit, talking about the only subject she knows: choice. School quality doesn’t matter; results don’t matter. The only thing that matters is choice, even if you can’t exercise it.
Mercedes reviews recent events–including the Edelman-Weingarten article opposing vouchers and defending charters–but the meat of her piece goes to the origins of svhool choice as a strategy to evade desegregation.
She places DeVos in the same boat with the notorious Southern governors, senators, and legislators who knew that their chance of defeating the Brown Decision of 1954 was to advocate school choice.
It is important to know history so you won’t be fooled.
Up until now, you probably thought of Betsy DeVos as an entitled billionaire who cares about nothing but charters and choice. You may have even concluded that she was indifferent to civil rights, since she has refused to say whether she would cut off federal funding to schools that discriminate against students who are black, gay, or whose religion does not conform to that of the school that want to attend. You may have gotten a negative impression of her because she has been energetically protecting student debt collectors, not students, or because she supports Trump’s proposal to cut $10 billion from the Department of Education.
But the New York Times assures you that she is not the hard-right fundamentalist you thought. For one thing, her appointment of Candace Jackson as acting head of the Office of Civil Rights should not alarm you, even though she has vociferously opposed affirmative action. Jackson is gay and married, so her policy views are no longer relevant.
And then there is her appointment of Jason Botel as deputy assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education. He supported President Obama and served as Trump’s chief education advisor. But he earned his stripes running a KIPP school in Baltimore, where he fought the teachers union.
The New York Times calls upon two outside experts to confirm that Betsy DeVos is actually a complex person, perhaps even a secret liberal: Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institure and Tom Toch of Future-Ed, both of whom support charters.
This is surely a story made up out of whole cloth; the fact that Candace Jackson is gay does not qualify her to enforce civil rights if she does not believe in enforcement of civil rights. By his experience in the privatization movement, Jason Botel seems perfectly suited to the Trump-DeVos agenda.
The title of the article: “Some Hires by Betsy DeVos Are a Stark Departure from her Reputation.” Someone please explain this title. I fail to see the stark departure that these two people represent, nor do these two hires change anything about her destructive agenda.
Carol Burris analyzes Betsy DeVos’ narrative about vouchers in this post.
What she describes goes far beyond the whims of a billionaire zealot. She describes the step-by-step plans of rightwingers who have long planned to undermine the very idea of public education as a civic responsibility.
DeVos said when she spoke at Brookings a few weeks ago that she in “not a numbers person.” She is also “not a facts person.”
First, she slimed those who defend public education from privatizers as “flat earthers.” Very likely, her family foundation has supported “flat earthers,” as they have supported creationism, quack science, and anti-gay organizations.
Then, she went on to attribute the origin of the modern voucher movement to African American Democrat, Polly Williams of Milwaukee. She forgot to mention that Polly Williams came to realize that she had been used by conservative rich people, and she renounced her support for vouchers. Not a small detail.
The great lie of the voucher movement is that it is built on the spurious claim that vouchers will “save” poor black and brown children. Faced with that claim, fraudulent though it is, liberals collapse and go along with the rightwing plan. But it never ends with the neediest children. That is only the beginning.
“And that, of course, was what Williams came to understand. Vouchers for the poor were the gateway; they were never the goal. That same pattern of starting small and going big repeats itself over and over. Educational savings accounts, tax credit scholarships and the like begin with student groups that evoke public sympathy — students with disabilities, low-income kids, the children of parents in the armed forces — but the goal is vouchers for all.
“DeVos and her allies are playing the long game. Each legislative season, the selected groups expand and the caps are raised. It happened in Indiana, where DeVos spoke to the American Federation for Children, and it is happening in other voucher states, as well.
“There is no better example than Arizona. Vouchers, disguised as the Empowerment Scholarship Account program (ESAs), began 2011. The program was designed for special-needs students. Then it expanded — foster-care students, children of military families, students on reservations, or students living in districts with schools rated a “D” or an “F” were eligible, as well.”
Now we know that vouchers don’t “save poor kids from failing schools.” In recent years, evaluations of vouchers in Louisiana, Indiana, and D.C. show that poor kids who use vouchers actually lose ground.
DeVos doesn’t care about evidence or facts or numbers. She is a choice zealot, and she will exploit her role in the government to push her lifelong passion to take public education away from the communities and families who support them. She doesn’t understand why people like their public schools. She never will.
Senator Elizabeth Warrren has created an online program called “DeVos Watch” to hold Betsy DeVos accountable for her oversight of student debt. The online platform will be hosted on Senator Warren’s website.
She wrote this opinion article for CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/opinions/devos-watch-opinion-warren
The Trump administration is pondering whether to turn over responsibility for student debt collection to the Treasury Department. This has been debated for years. During the Clinton administration, Secretary Richard Riley turned the idea down,saying that “the move would be prohibitively expensive and that “since most borrowers default on their student loans because they are unable to make the payments, the IRS would be no more able to collect these payments than the Department of Education.” Mr. Riley added that perhaps large employers could make wage-withholding arrangements to streamline the process.”
Chester Finn, however, saw a benefit to making the Treasury the collection agency. He said,
Chester Finn, an assistant secretary of education during the Reagan administration, told a congressional committee that was considering the proposal that allowing the IRS to collect loans might encourage borrowers to repay them. “Perhaps the prospect of a stay in Leavenworth would finally reduce the multibillion-dollar loan-default problem,” he said.”
http://www.chronicle.com/article/What-if-the-Treasury-Dept/240218
Warren’s decision to create “DeVos Watch” was applauded by Ashley Harrington of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). She said,
“We applaud Senator Warren’s leadership for holding Secretary DeVos and the Department of Education accountable to students and parents. This new resource will be valued not only by education leaders and advocates, but additionally by the 44 million student loan borrowers who collectively share $1.4 trillion in debt.
“It is a matter of public record that higher education accountability at the federal level has suffered a series of setbacks since Secretary DeVos was confirmed earlier this year.
“From her senior-level appointees with close ties to the for-profit college industry, to the departmental regulatory reversals that favor for-profit colleges and loan servicers to the detriment of student borrowers, a growing concern has developed among consumer and civil rights advocates. We continue to call into question the quality, accessibility, and affordability of for-profit college institutions.
“Further, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the recently-released 2018 White House budget proposal would result in $26.8 billion in cuts that students and families will have to pay for over the next decade. Additionally, nine programs now operating within the Department would be eliminated at a cost of nearly $5 billion to students.
“No elected or appointed official should ever depart from or diminish the primary role of government: service to the American people. Instead, Secretary DeVos’ actions create a pattern of preference to private interests. Shedding further light on these practices is essential to protecting students and taxpayers.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 