Archives for category: Betsy DeVos
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DeVos’ Organization Attacks Randi and Jonah for Opposing Vouchers

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2017 //
40

Betsy DeVos founded and funded the American Federation for Children, which advocates for vouchers.

AFC issued this statement today:

AFC Statement on Weingarten-Edelman Op-Ed

The American Federation for Children, the nation’s voice for educational choice, released the following statement in response to the Los Angeles Times op-ed from Randi Weingarten and Jonah Edelman.

Statement from Kevin P. Chavous, founding board member and executive counsel for the American Federation for Children:

Today’s op-ed by American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, and Stand for Children President Jonah Edelman is a disservice to millions of parents and children across the nation who want nothing more than equal access to a quality education.

The op-ed is full of hyberbole and outright inaccuracies.

First, the headline is rich with irony. It is school choice–directly empowering parents to choose the best educational environment for their child–that is the most democratic of ideas. Rather than undermining public schools, choice helps public schools by virtue of having to compete with other options. Only among the K-12 establishment would competition be considered undermining public schools.

Second, the Administration’s FY 2018 budget proposal does not “siphon billions of dollars from public schools to fund private and religious school vouchers.” It is not “diverting $1 billion into voucher programs.” These are completely false statements. The Administration’s budget proposes $1.4 billion for school choice–$1.15 billion of which is for public school choice. Moreover, all but $250 million of these proposed resources would remain in public schools.

Third, the op-ed states “facts show that where vouchers have been into practice on a meaningful scale, they hurt student learning.” The op-ed also cites a recently released study of first year data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences saying it “adds to a growing body of education research that concludes vouchers may harm rather help student achievement.” These too are completely false statements.

Leaving aside the obvious fact that parents themselves have chosen to participate in private school choice programs, the body of research on these programs proves they work for children fortunate enough to participate.

Prior to the IES report, there have been 15 empirical studies examining academic outcomes for students participating in private school choice using random assignment, the “gold standard” of defensible social science:

• 10 found improved test scores for school choice participants
• 3 found no significant effect for school choice participants
• 2 found negative impact in the early years of study for school choice participants

21 studies examined school choice and how it impacts academic outcomes in public schools:

• 20 found that school choice improved public school academic outcomes
• 1 found no significant effect on academic outcomes from school choice

Finally, the School Superintendents Association “research” into states with existing tax credit scholarship programs and how some “donors have been able to make a profit off the backs of taxpayers and ultimately kids.” Perhaps Weingarten and Edelman are unaware of how tax credit scholarship programs work. Corporate and individual donors pay state taxes. They make a contribution to a local non-profit that provides scholarships for eligible children to attend a private school of their parents choice. They get a tax credit, they don’t make a profit. Parents and children across the nation would be fortunate indeed if the Administration and Congress were to adopt a federal tax credit because it would facilitate access to a quality education for another 1 million students–most of whom will graduate and go on to college as the body of research into these programs clearly demonstrates.

Take away the hyperbole and inaccuracies, what Randi Weingarten and Jonah Edelman truly oppose is giving parents, especially low-income parents, the ability to choose something other than their neighborhood traditional public school. While some of these neighborhood schools may be terrific schools, many are clearly not, which is why millions seek other options. The teachers’ unions oppose choice in education–period. The fact that organizations like Stand for Children and Democrats for Education Reform prefer to stand with the teachers’ unions rather than standing with the 3.5 million children in charter schools and private choice programs, and the millions more who desperately want access to better options, speaks volumes.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Vouchers

Jennifer Berkshire: How Betsy DeVos Segregated the Public Schools in Her Hometown, Holland, Michigan

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2017 //
10

A few years back, I went to Michigan to speak to a large group of superintendents, whose schools collectively enrolled half the students in the state. I learned from them about the pernicious effects of school choice. The state wiped out all district lines for purposes of enrollment. Students can enroll in any public school without regard to district lines, and schools are paid by the state based on numbers enrolled. Consequently, every district commits a portion of its budget to poaching students away from the neighboring districts. Each district spends about $100,000 each year on advertising, in hopes of getting more students and the money attached to them.

All this is background to Jennifer Berkshire’s incisive piece about how school choice promotes segregation. Jennifer recently visited Betsy DeVos’s hometown, Holland, Michigan, and was there to view the Tulip Time parade. As she watched the high school marching bands pass by, she saw a vivid portrait of segregation on display.

She writes:

“First, some background. During the endless runup to DeVos’ confirmation hearing last year, it was the Wild West-style school choice she’d pushed in Detroit that garnered most of the attention. But DeVos was also behind Michigan’s inter-district choice policies that, starting in 2000, *disrupted* neighborhood attendance zones, just as the proposed Trump/DeVos education budget seeks to do. In Michigan, school choice has become the new white flight as white families have fled their resident districts for schools and districts that are less diverse. The most dramatic example of this may be in DeVos’ own home town of Holland.

“The choice to segregate

“Since Michigan adopted the school choice policies DeVos is now pushing across the country, Holland’s white enrollment has dropped by more than 60%, as students decamped for public schools or charters in whiter communities nearby. The students who remain in the Holland Public Schools are now majority Hispanic and overwhelmingly poor—twice the schools’ poverty rate when Michigan’s school choice experiment began. Many of these students are the children of migrant farm workers who came to this part of the state to pick fruit; school choice enabled Holland’s white families to pick not to attend school with them. One in three students in Holland no longer attends school there, and since the money follows the child in the Mitten State, yet another DeVos priority, white flight has eaten the district’s finances too.

“In 2000, Holland had fifteen schools. Now it has just eight. Of nine Holland schools that once served elementary students, half have closed. By 2009, even the elementary school where DeVos’ mother once taught had been shuttered. As students flee for schools in communities like Zeeland, the future of Holland’s public schools looks increasingly dire. Already there are mutterings in this wealthy, Dutch-dominated community that the school population *doesn’t represent* Holland. And as DeVos well understands, a community that has little stake in its schools is unlikely to shell out money to pay for them…

“The Trump/DeVos education budget was made public on the 63rd anniversary of Brown vs. Board. DeVos’ vision isn’t just a retreat from Brown—it embodies the spirit that animated its opponents to set up segregation academies in Brown’s wake. The budget that bears her imprint would encourage and even incentivize white flight. We don’t have to speculate about where all this leads. The outcome of the kind of school choice policies that DeVos has pushed for decades in her home state and now wants every state to embrace has been starkly measurable segregation. And even that is an understatement. What I witnessed in DeVos’ hometown last week was extreme sorting on the basis of race and class. That the top education official in the country thinks this is a good thing is appalling.”

Folks, our Secretary of Education is encouraging racial and social segregation. She won’t stand in its way. She doesn’t care, she won’t act to stop it, she wants to subsidize it.

Were he alive, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would denounce her actions. How dare she and Trump claim they are advancing “the civil rights issue of out time!” They are reversing the progress made since 1954 with “all deliberate speed.”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Michigan, School Choice, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration

Linda Lyons: DeVos is Intent on Reviving State-Sponsored Discrimination

By dianeravitch
May 30, 2017 //
20

Lina Lyons is president-elect of the Arizona School Boards Association.

She writes here about the spurious claim that school choice is the answer to all problems.

She says that the nevitable result of school choice will not be better education, but segregation by race, class, ethnicity, and socioeconomic.

Yet DeVos continues to evade any federal responsibility for promoting desegregation and evades any federal responsibility for discouraging discrimination.

She writes:

“Some parents don’t know best. There. I said it. Let’s face it, some parents aren’t present, some are abusive, and some are drug addicts. Then there are those who are trying their damnedest to provide for their children but their minimum wage jobs (without benefits) just don’t pay enough to make ends meet. Bottom line is, not all parents know how, or care enough to provide, the best they can for their children. Where that is the case, or, when hard working parents need a little help, it is up to all of us in a civil society, to ensure all children are safe and that their basic needs are met. As education reformer John Dewey said over a century ago, “What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must we want for all the children of the community. Anything less is unlovely, and left unchecked, destroys our democracy.”

“Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos evidently doesn’t agree. In recent testimony to Congress, no matter what question she was asked about how far states would be allowed to go in discriminating against certain types of students, she kept deflecting to “states rights” and “parental rights,” failing to say at any point in the testimony that she would ensure states receiving federal dollars would not discriminate. From watching her testimony, if she had been the Secretary of Education with Donald Trump as President back in the early 1960s, the Alabama National Guard would undoubtedly never have been called up to integrate the schools.

“This should surprise no one. After all, the entire school reform agenda is really about promoting survival of the fittest. Those who “have” and already do well, will be set up for even more success while those dealing with the challenges poverty presents, will continue to suffer. As far as Betsy DeVos is concerned, the U.S. Department of Education has no responsibility to protect students from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, gender identity. The hell with Brown vs. Board of Education, she will not step in to ensure states do the right thing for their students. As Jack Covey wrote recently to Diane Ravitch, to Betsy, “choice” is everything and parents should be able to send their children to a black-free, LGBT-free, or Muslim-free school on the taxpayer’s dime if they want to.

“Does that EVEN sound remotely like America to you? How can it be okay for our tax dollars to promote blatant discrimination? This is essentially state-sponsored discrimination. Yes, discrimination has always occurred via self-funded choice. The wealthy have always been able to keep their children away from the rest of us but, it was on their own dime. As it has always been with parents who stretched budgets to live in neighborhoods with the “best” school district as a way to ensure their child had the best chance.”

There were many reasons to oppose Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Add another: she has no intention of using federal dollars to enforce the laws barring discrimination.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bias, Civil Rights, Democracy, Inequity, Racism, School Choice, Segregation

A Writer Checks Out Betsy DeVos’ Quack Brain Training Center

By dianeravitch
May 29, 2017 //
33

When Betsy DeVos became Secretary, she left the board of Neurocore but did not give up her multimillion dollar financial investment. Ulrich Bosera signed up for Neurocore services in Palm Beach, Florida.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/05/26/betsy-devos-neurocore/?wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

He describes what happened to him, then concludes:

SO WHAT DOES IT SAY that our education secretary is backing Neurocore?

For one, it seems that feeble science doesn’t bother DeVos. The budget document released by her department on Tuesday emphasizes that education decisions should be informed by “reliable data, strong research, and rigorous evaluations.” But like her boss, President Trump, DeVos apparently isn’t one to let evidence get in the way of what she wants to do. A recent study of school vouchers by DeVos’s agency showed that one program dragged down math scores by as much as seven points. Still, DeVos champions voucher programs, dismissing her opponents this past week as “flat-earthers.”

We don’t yet have any indication that DeVos intends to introduce neurofeedback into the nation’s public schools. But her enormous investment in Neurocore is ethically inappropriate. It means she has a financial stake in a particular approach to education. Some brain training companies promote themselves specifically for the classroom, and a few K-12 schools have begun partnering with brain training companies. Oaks Christian School in California provides neurofeedback with the help of an outside vendor, and Universal Academy in Dallas recently signed a contract with the firm C8 Sciences (which promises that it “can close the achievement gap in low performing schools and enhance focus, memory, and self-control to greatly improve academic outcomes!”). For his part, Murrison denies that Neurocore has any plan to go into schools. But the company’s marketing clearly targets children — and their distressed parents.

And certainly the DeVos family has used its connections before to open doors for Neurocore. DeVos’s father-in-law owns the Orlando Magic, and the basketball team has hired a division of Neurocore “to reach performance levels not previously achieved,” according to the company. Quarterback Kirk Cousins’s brother works for Neurocore, and the Washington football player swears by neurofeedback. “I see brain training as being that next thing, the next frontier,” he says on one of the company’s promotional pages.

At the very least, DeVos appears to be dangerously naive about what it takes to help people learn — especially children with special needs.

[Betsy DeVos wants “choice” for special needs kids. In Asia, we saw what that can mean.]

Brain training companies use the veneer of science to promise effortless fixes. In the case of Neurocore, the firm claims that the intervention is “easy,” just a matter of watching TV in its offices a couple of times a week. Other companies peddle games, promising that some online diversions can boost intellect.

But as I wrote in my book on the science of learning, gaining expertise of any kind is difficult. Indeed, some researchers, such as psychologist Lisa Son, believe that more difficult forms of learning are better forms of learning. This explains why quizzing yourself has been shown to be far more effective than re-reading at helping people understand and retain information: It makes the learning experience a little more strenuous.

The same is true for treating cognitive disorders such as ADHD or anxiety: Interventions that work typically cause some personal strain. Effective treatments are often emotionally difficult (like talk therapy), require a lot of personal investment (like behavior modification), come with uncomfortable side effects (like Ritalin) or simply take time (like working out). This makes promises of “fun” and “easy” solutions seem tone-deaf at best, cruel at worst.

Still, scared and anguished parents, hunting for hope, will open their wallets, even if an approach has little scientific support. “A lot of times in autism, families are so desperate for an answer, they literally will take a website as evidence” for a treatment, Tom Frazier, chief science officer for Autism Speaks, told me. “It’s very concerning.”

In his book “Autism’s False Prophets,” pediatrician Paul Offit goes further, pointing out that unproven claims do more than fritter away time and money. They can injure both the healthy and the already sick. “The false alarm about vaccines and autism continues to harm a lot of children,” Offit writes. “Harm from not getting needed vaccines, harm from potentially dangerous treatments to eliminate mercury, and harm from therapies as absurd as testosterone ablation and electric shock.”

I’ll admit that before I stepped into Neurocore, I had little intention of signing up for the company’s treatment. I had read too many articles skeptical of brain training to think that I should pay for its services. But it took talking to experts and a visit to Florida to discover that the firm was also hurtful — a Trump University for people with cognitive struggles. By wrapping weak science in sleek packaging, by promising something that it cannot fully deliver, Neurocore offers false hope to people who need honest help. In this regard, what’s most remarkable is that DeVos, the nation’s foremost pedagogue, is behind it all, promoting a form of education that doesn’t actually seem to educate.

Categories Betsy DeVos

DeVos Hires Top Official at For-Profit University to Help “Right-Size” Department of Education

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2017 //
13

Jennifer Berkshire reports that Secretary Betsy DeVos has turned to a top official from the scandal-plagued for-profit higher education industry to “right-size” the Department of Education.

As the New York Times said when his appointment was announced:

“As chief compliance officer for a corporate owner of for-profit colleges, Robert S. Eitel spent the past 18 months as a top lawyer for a company facing multiple government investigations, including one that ended with a settlement of more than $30 million over deceptive student lending.”

Eitel worked for Bridgepoint Education Inc., which took over a small private college in 2005, called Ashford College. Bridgepoint turned it into a colossus of online higher education. In 2005, Ashford had 300 students. By 2010, it had more than 80,000.

Berkshire interviewed Christopher Crowley of Wayne State, who explained how the business leaders of the new enterprises turned a struggling small college into a profitable success:

Crowley: When Bridgepoint bought Franciscan in 2005, the college was going bankrupt. The total result amount of student loan money that Franciscan was taking in at that point was $3 million. But less than two years later, the school, which was now called Ashford University, was getting $81 million in federal student aid and reporting profits of $3.1 million. By 2010, Ashford University reported $216 million in profit and was receiving $613 million in federal student aid funds. Part of the reason for this was a huge drop in how much less they were spending per student. Franciscan spent about $5,000 per year, per student on instructional costs. Ashford spent just $700. That’s an 86% reduction in spending over five years. That money went to pay for lavish executive compensation as well for marketing and recruitment. By 2010, Bridgepoint was spending $211.6 million on advertising, more than any other publicly traded education company in the United States at the time.”

Ashford’s transformation into a piggy bank for investors is a story of the triumph of opportunistic capitalism fueled by greed. But it is also a story that recounts the collapse of the higher learning. And one of The architects of that transformation will guide Betsy DeVos, who has no managerial experience, as she reorganizes the U.S. Department of Education.

Categories Betsy DeVos, For-Profit, Higher Education

Annie Waldman: Betsy DeVos on Creationism and Intelligent Design

By dianeravitch
May 27, 2017 //
44

Annie Waldman wrote this article for ProPublica in January, after DeVos’s confirmation hearing and before she was confirmed. I’m sorry I missed it. Waldman tried to pin down DeVos’s views on creationism. As we have learned, what Betsy is really good at is evasion. She and her spokespersons say she doesn’t take a position on how science should be taught. But: she and her family foundations have given large sums to Focus on the Family, which opposes teaching evolution and supports equal time for intelligent design.

She writes:

“DeVos and her family have poured millions of dollars into groups that champion intelligent design, the doctrine that the complexity of biological life can best be explained by the existence of a creator rather than by Darwinian evolution. Within this movement, “critical thinking” has become a code phrase to justify teaching of intelligent design.

“Candi Cushman, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, described DeVos’ nomination as a positive development for communities that want to include intelligent design in their school curricula. Both the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation and Betsy DeVos’ mother’s foundation have donated to Focus on the Family, which has promoted intelligent design.

“Mrs. DeVos will work toward ensuring parents and educators have a powerful voice at the local level on multiple issues, including science curriculum,” wrote Cushman in an email.

“DeVos has not publicly spoken about her personal views on intelligent design. A more nuanced outgrowth of creationism, the approach lost steam after a federal court ruled a decade ago that teaching it in public schools would violate the separation of church and state. Greg McNeilly, a longtime aide to DeVos and an executive at her and her husband’s privately held investment management firm, the Windquest Group, said he knows from personal discussions with DeVos that she does not believe that intelligent design should be taught in public schools. He added that her personal beliefs on the theory, whatever they are, shouldn’t matter.

“I don’t know the answer to whether she believes in intelligent design — it’s not relevant,” McNeilly told ProPublica. “There is no debate on intelligent design or creationism being taught in schools. According to federal law, it cannot be taught.”

“That assurance provides little comfort to those who worry that DeVos’ nomination could erode public schools’ commitment to teaching evolution.”

Hearing DeVos refer to “critical thinking” was “like hearing old catch phrases from a nearly forgotten TV show that never made prime time,” Michigan State University professor Robert Pennock told ProPublica. Pennock has written several books and articles about creationism and intelligent design, including “The Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism” (2000), and has testified as an expert witness that intelligent design should not be studied in public school science courses.

“She evaded what should have been a simple question about not teaching junk science,” Pennock wrote in an email. “More than that, she did so in a way that signaled her willingness to open the door to intelligent design creationism.”

Just remember that when someone from the far-right praises “critical thinking,” that’s a new code word for intelligent design (I.e., the Hand of God).

Categories Betsy DeVos, Curriculum

Betsy DeVos Would Not Deny Federal Funding to a School That Refuses to Admit Child of LGBT Family

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2017 //
29

At her Congressional hearing, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was asked directly if she would deny federal funding to the Lighthouse Christian zacademy in Bloomington, Indiana, which explicitly bans the enrollment ipof students who are homosexual or who live in a family where homosexual activity is practiced.

“Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, cited Lighthouse Christian Academy’s enrollment brochure, which states that the private school can refuse admission or discontinue enrollment of a student living in a home environment that includes “homosexual or bisexual activity” or “practicing alternate gender identity.”

“The eight-page brochure, titled “Admissions Information and Policies 2017-2018,” can be found on Lighthouse Christian Academy’s website with other admission materials.

“Under a section titled, Biblical Lifestyle, its lists 10 behaviors “prohibited in the Bible,” including “heterosexual activity outside of one man-one-woman marriage;” “homosexual or bisexual activity or any form of sexual immorality;” and “practicing alternate gender identity or any other identity or behavior that violates God’s ordained distinctions between the two sexes, male and female.” Specific Bible verses are cited after each of the 10 behaviors.

“In situations in which the home life violates these standards, LCA reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to refuse admission of an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student,” the brochure reads.”

The school currently receives more than $665,000 in state funding under the Indiana voucher program.

DeVos responded.

“The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s schooling and education decisions,” DeVos said, when given a chance to respond to the question uninterrupted. “Too many children today are trapped in schools that don’t work for them. We have to do something different than continuing a top down, one-size-fits all approach. States and local communities are best equipped to make these decisions and framework on behalf of their students.”

The follow-up question should have been whether she would approve funding to a school that enroll students who are of the same religion. The next question should have been whether federal funds could be disbursed to a school that does not admit students who are black.

Are we seeing the abandonment of the federal role as a guarantor of equal rights? Will the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights be handed over to Jeff Sessions? Or will it be led by someone who defends choice over civil rights?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

Jeff Bryant: DeVos’s “Transformation”=Public Theft

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2017 //
8

Jeff Bryant has read Betsy DeVos’s speeches slamming public schools and extolling the virtues of public subsidy for private and religious schools. She carefully selects an anecdote to make her case. But she is late to the party. There is now persuasive evidence that students in voucher schools get worse results than their peers in public schools. In addition, many of those who use vouchers are students from affluent families who are happy to have the pyvlid foot the bill for their private school tuition.

Betsy is shilling for her extremist allies at ALEC.

“Declaring “the time has expired for ‘reform,’” she called instead for a “transformation… that will open up America’s closed and antiquated education system.” Her plan also opens your wallet to new moochers of taxpayer dollars.

“By the way, AFC, according to SourceWatch, is a “conservative 501(c)(4) dark money group that promotes the school privatization agenda via the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and other avenues.” It also grew out of a defunct PAC connected to DeVos called “All Children Matter” that ran afoul legally in Ohio and Wisconsin and still owes Ohio $5.3 million for breaking election laws.”

Bryant concludes:

“In her efforts to create the education transformation she calls for, DeVos is supremely eager to “get Washington and the federal bureaucracy out of the way,” but still wants you to pay the cost of privatizing our schools. That’s not an agenda for better schools. It’s about stealing public money.”

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Betsy DeVos, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Privatization, School Choice

Jack Covey: The Return of Jim Crow?

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2017 //
30

Reader Jack Covey watched Betsy DeVos testify at a Congressional hearing and was startled by what he saw and heard:

“What’s scary is Secretary Devos’ tacit claim that, when it comes to schools that receive government funding — charter schools, voucher-funded private schools, etc. — the U.S. Department of Ed.:

“— HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT STUDENTS FROM DISCRIMINATION — based on race, ethnicity, religion sexual preference, gender identity, etc. — AT THE HANDS OF THOSE RUNNING THOSE GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCHOOLS.

“— WILL DO NOTHING — provide NO protections, NO assistance in filing a grievance, or any help seeking a remedy (i.e. and amicus brief in any lawsuit) … NO NOTHING, brother — FOR ANY STUDENTS WHO ARE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BY THOSE IN CHARGE OF CHARTER OR VOUCHER-FUNDED PRIVATE SCHOOLS THAT RECEIVE GOVERNMENT FUNDING. (again, this is discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, special ed disability, sexual preference, gender identity, etc.)

“Watch this exchange here between Secretary Devos and Congresswoman Katherine Clark (MA-05):.

Secretary Devos is essentially sending a message to those in charge of those government-funded schools — charter schools, voucher-funded private schools, etc.

“Discriminate against any and all students, based on whatever criteria tbat you see fit, and do so to your heart’s content, and we at the U.S. Department of Ed. will back you all the way.

“What’s that? You say don’t want any blacks at your school? Just feel free to tell any who try to get in, ‘We don’t accept blacks here,’ and if and when those against whom you are discriminating try to fight back, the U.S. Department of Ed. and the Federal Government will just sit back, stay out of it, and do nothing to assist those against whom you are discriminating. We at the U.S. Department of Ed. are givin’ you The Green Light to go ahead with all this.”

“That same Green Light goes DITTO for any other group. race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, gender identity, etc.”

“Question: why isn’t this on the cover of every newspaper in the country, the lead story in the network news, etc?

“I mean, Sweet Jesus, the nation’s top Education official has — when it comes to schools getting government funding, such as charter schools and voucher-funded private schools — just announced the de facto reversal of Brown vs. Board of Education, and a century-and-a-half of anti-discrimination civil rights laws and activism.

“Watch it again:

“The Congresswoman is asking Devos if there’s any instance of discrimination that would merit the U..S Department stepping in to assist students who are victims of discrimination, and Devos, in effect, replies, “No, never. We ain’t doin’ jack for them.”

“Secretary Devos’ logic is basically that “Choice trumps everything”, and by that, she means that a black-free school, or a LGBT-free school should be a “choice” that all parents should have, and that taxpayers’ money should be provided to those parents and to those schools to assist in exercising that choice.

“Furthermore, Devos argues that anything that prevents such schools from having free reign to discriminate against certain students — i.e. a government compulsion to accept blacks, or Hispanics, or gays, or Special Ed. kids,or whomever, through, for example, a threatened loss of funding or vouchers — would also simultaneously deprive parents of that no-blacks-allowed, no-whomever-allowed school “choice” and again, “Choice trumps all.”

“This confirms people’s worst fears about Trump — that yes, he is indeed working hand-in-hand with racist elements in the population, or with people who wish to discriminate against anyone for any reason whatsoever — and get taxpayers’ money to fund and carry out such discrimination.”

HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bias, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Injustice, School Choice, Segregation

Wisconsin Congressman Tries but Fails to Get DeVos to Acknowledge Failure of Vouchers in Milwaukee

By dianeravitch
May 25, 2017 //
28

Betsy DeVos appeared at her second Congressional hearing to defend the Department’s budget priorities. At her first hearing, she said that schools might need guns to protect against grizzlies.

What she demonstrated was her masterful ability to evade and obfuscate questions, never giving a direct answer to inconvenient questions.

Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin tried to get her to respond to the failure of vouchers in Milwaukee, and DeVos ducked and bobbed skillfully.

“Pocan, from Wisconsin, said that the state’s pioneering work on taxpayer-funded private school vouchers was a “failed experiment” that resulted in lackluster test scores, unaccountability and the ability for private schools to exclude kids with disabilities.

“Pointing to a lawsuit by parents of kids at Right Step Inc., a Milwaukee voucher school, because only 7 percent of students were proficient in English and none were proficient in math, he asked DeVos, “Would you send you kid to a school where 93 percent of the students aren’t English proficient and 0 percent are math proficient?”

“DeVos thanked Pocan for the question, then launched into a history of vouchers in Wisconsin, dropping the name of Annette Polly Williams, the late Democratic state lawmaker from Milwaukee who was an early voucher advocate.

“Who now says it’s not lived up to its promise,” interjected Pocan, leaving him open to a technicality.

“And who’s no longer living,” DeVos pointed out.

“Williams, for the record, ended up disowning the choice program and accusing its supporters of exploiting black children.

“The pointed but unproductive questioning continued with DeVos pointing out at least three times that Milwaukee has 28,000 kids in voucher programs.

“For his part, Pocan pointed out that the last expansion of the choice program resulted in three-fourths of the public money going to parents whose kids were already enrolled in the private schools they were getting vouchers for, and two-thirds went to families making over $100,000 a year.

“Do you think your federal program will support this sort of thing, so it’s not to encourage new outlets in education, simply to give money to people who already attend those schools?” he asked.

“Well, I really applaud Milwaukee for empowering parents to make the decisions that they think are right for their students and children,” DeVos answered.”

Pecan must have forgotten that DeVos is not a numbers person. Also not a facts person or a research person.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Failure, Milwaukee, School Choice
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