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Steven Singer on Betsy’s Choice

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2017 //
12

Remember the wonderful and tragic novel and movie “Sophie’s Choice”? The novel by William Styron was made into a film starring Meryl Streep. It was about a Holocaust survivor who tells her story of having to choose which of her children will live and whic will die.

Steven Singer writes about what he calls “Betsy’s Choice.”

Which will she be faithful to: civil rights or school privatization?

“As U.S. Secretary of Education, she is responsible for upholding the civil rights of all U.S. students.

“She is NOT a paid lobbyist for the school privatization industry.

“Yet when asked point blank by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) whether her department would ensure that private schools receiving federal school vouchers don’t discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) students, she refused to give a straight answer.

“She said that the these schools would be required to follow all federal antidiscrimination laws but her department would not issue any clarifications or directives about exactly how they should be doing it.

“On areas where the law is unsettled, this department is not going to be issuing decrees. That is a matter for Congress and the courts to settle,” DeVos said at a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education yesterday.

“I think you just said where it’s unsettled, such discrimination will continue to be allowed under your program. If that’s incorrect, please correct it for the record,” Merkley replied.

“DeVos did not correct him.”

No, she will not protect the rights of LGBTQ students to learn free from harassment or discrimination.

It is also unclear whether she will protect the rights of students who attend voucher schools, which may discriminate by race, religion, language, disability status, or any other grounds. Why? Because the pretense of voucher advocates is that voucher funds go to the family or corporation, not to the schools. So a voucher school may exclude children of a different faith because it does not directly receive federal funds. Betsy doesn’t know many things, but she certainly know the legal dodges to get around constitutional barriers to funding religious schools.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Education Reform

Jeff Bryant: DeVos’s New Hires Signal a Retreat or Abandonment on Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2017 //
4

Jeff Bryant warns that Betsy DeVos’ new hires spell bad news for protection of civil rights by the U.S. Department of Education.

He writes:

“Already, much has been written about Candice Jackson, DeVos’s deputy assistant secretary and acting head in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights….

“An in-depth profile by ProPublica revealed her “limited background in civil rights law” and her previous writings in which she “denounced feminism and race-based preferences.”

“A recent piece in the New York Times tried to rehabilitate Jackson’s image, noting, “She is a sexual assault survivor, and has been married to her wife for more than a decade.”

“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,” wrote education historian Diane Ravitch on her personal blog after reading the Times piece.

“A more recent hire for the department’s deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs is former Koch Foundation employee and director of the Individual Rights Defense Program Adam Kissel.

“According to Inside Higher Ed, Kissel has accused universities of “violating the free speech rights of students and faculty. He’s also criticized broader ‘intolerance’ on campuses” and “taken issue with the standard of proof used by colleges in the adjudication of recent sexual harassment and assault cases.”

“Kissel has been a high profile critic of the federal government’s enforcement of Title IX, the federal gender-equity law, and how it’s been applied to campus sexual violence. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Kissel has used op-eds and Twitter to declare, “American higher education is smothered in intolerance of diverse ideas,” a phrase often used to allow hate speech on college campuses.

“Another new DeVos hire with a problematic past related to discrimination is Kimberly Richey, who will serve as deputy assistant secretary for special education and rehabilitative services.

“Richey was previously the state counsel for Oklahoma’s state superintendent of education Janet Barresi…A 2015 examination by Oklahoma Watch found, “Oklahoma ranked first in the nation in rates of special education students being expelled from schools. It ranked fourth in corporal punishment of such students, 19th in in-school suspensions, 28th in out-of-school suspensions and 20th in arrests.”

“According to state data, students with disabilities “were more likely than their peers to be suspended, expelled, arrested, handcuffed or paddled. In dozens of schools, special education students are anywhere from two to 10 times more likely to be disciplined, the data show. At some schools, every special education student has been physically disciplined, suspended or expelled.”

As the saying goes, personnel is policy.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Discipline and Suspensions, Oklahoma, U.S. Department of Education

DeVos Shows What Vouchers are About

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2017 //
69

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.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

The New York Times Discovers the “Bright Side” of Betsy DeVos

By dianeravitch
June 2, 2017 //
44

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.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Privatization

Trump Plans to Gut Civil Rights Agencies in Every Cabinet Department

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2017 //
14

How many times have you heard Trump or DeVos claiming that their privatization plan for public schools is “the civil rights issue of our time”? They heard the same line from Obama and Duncan and even Mitt Romney, so we can’t credit them with originality.

Where they differ from Obama and Duncan is that they have made it clear that they intend to eviscerate the government agencies that enforce civil rights.

This is an example of cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, or lying. You be the judge.

“The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights.

“As outlined in Labor’s fiscal 2018 plan, the move would fold the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, now home to 600 employees, into another government agency in the name of cost-cutting.

“The proposal to dismantle the compliance office comes at a time when the Trump administration is reducing the role of the federal government in fighting discrimination and protecting minorities by cutting budgets, dissolving programs and appointing officials unsympathetic to previous practices.

“The new leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has proposed eliminating its environmental justice program, which addresses pollution that poses health threats specifically concentrated in minority communities. The program, in part, offers money and technical help to residents who are confronted with local hazards such as leaking oil tanks or emissions from chemical plants.

“Under President Trump’s proposed budget, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights — which has investigated thousands of complaints of discrimination in school districts across the country and set new standards for how colleges should respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment — would also see significant staffing cuts. Administration officials acknowledge in budget documents that the civil rights office will have to scale back the number of investigations it conducts and limit travel to school districts to carry out its work.”

As we know, Betsy DeVos selected an acting head of the Education Department who is known for her opposition to affirmative action.

“In Education Department budget documents, the administration acknowledges that proposed funding levels would hamper the work of that department’s civil rights office. The budget would reduce staffing by more than 40 employees.”

Categories Civil Rights, Education Industry, Privatization, Trump

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

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

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

Watch Rev. William Barber, Our Most Eloquent Spokesman for Civil Rights, Speak at the Schott Foundation Dinner

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
6

Reverend William Barber II is our most eloquent spokesman for civil rights today. Some believe he is the next Martin Luther King Jr.

He just stepped down as head of the North Carolina NAACP, where he saw daily assaults on voting rights, public schools, and poor people. He started the Moral Mondays Movement, where people witnessed on the steps of the Legislature, which busily enacted laws to strip away the rights of citizens of the state.

He is starting a national organization to fight for a moral vision for America.

He spoke at the Schott Foundation dinner on May 11. Here is his speech. You are in for a treat.

Categories Civil Rights, North Carolina
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