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DOGE Aims to Privatize Federal Government Functions

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2025 //
11

Those of us who have watched the movement to privatize public education over the past 30 years have witnessed a long list of broken promises. Privately-run schools, we were told, would be more effective, more accountable, more transparent, more responsive to students and parents, and would save money!

Now we know that none of those claims were true.

Privatization, in the case of charter schools and vouchers, does not produce better results, except when the privatizers exclude the students with the greatest needs. Privatization does not save money; in fact, it’s more expensive because the business has to turn a profit. Privatization means less accountability and less transparency; lobbyists for the charter chains and voucher entities fight both accountability and transparency. Accountability and testing, it turns out, is only for public schools, not for religious and private schools. Privatization opens the way to graft, corruption, fraud, waste, and abuse.

The Washington Post wrote that the highest goal of Elon Musk’s DOGE plan is privatization of government services.

Mail delivery. Real estate. Foreign aid grants. The Trump administration is moving to privatize a sweeping number of government functions and assets — a long-standing Republican goal that’s being catalyzed by billionaire Elon Musk.

The slash-and-burn approach of Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is paving the way for a new shift to the private sector, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy in a real-world test of the conservative theory — a version of which is also widely popular in Silicon Valley — that companies are better than government at saving money and responding to people’s needs.

Examples are popping up across Washington and in proposals from President Donald Trump’s allies, though the plans are at various stages of development and, in some cases, have already encountered resistance.

At the DOGE-allied General Services Administration, officials are quietly moving ahead with a push to sell hundreds of publicly owned buildings to private companies — which can then lease them back to the government, theoretically saving maintenance and upkeep costs for taxpayers, according to two people briefed on internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

At the Postal Service, whose leaders have tussled with DOGE representatives, a plan for full privatization appears to have lost steam after facing pushback and legal hurdles. But private firms are preparing for a piecemeal government effort to outsource mail and package handling and long-haul trucking routes, while off-loading leases for unprofitable post offices, according to six industry executives.

At the Interior Department, Secretary Doug Burgum has proposed allowing private developers to build on federal lands across the West. And in his first public address as treasury secretary, former hedge fund manager Scott Bessent vowed to “reprivatize the economy.”
Businesspeople and policymakers close to the administration are stepping up with additional proposals.

A Wall Street investor nominated to run the International Development Finance Corporation, a little-known foreign investment agency that works to align the private sector with U.S. foreign policy goals, has suggested redirecting a large portion of the $40 billion budget of the shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development to investors, start-ups and companies that work in developing countries.

The proposal, which was posted on X by the nominee, Ben Black, and tech investor Joe Lonsdale, is under consideration within the White House, according to a person familiar with it, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. Bloomberg first reported that the initiative was under consideration.

The military contractor Erik Prince has pushed to turn over defense and immigration enforcement functions to private security firms, at one point pitching U.S. officials on a plan to execute operations in Africa, according to three people with knowledge of the idea, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations. CNN reported that Prince also has floated the use of private military contractors to carry out operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen…

Traditional Republicans have long argued that private companies can do a better job of managing government services than civil servants. But Musk and his Silicon Valley associates want to push the idea much further than the mainstream GOP. At a Morgan Stanley technology conference this month, Musk said the government should privatize “everything we possibly can.”

Categories Charter Schools, Corruption, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Failure, For-Profit, Fraud, Musk, Elon, Privatization, Trump

DOGE Creates Chaos and Fear at HHS

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2025 //
3

Government Executive reports that the Secretary Of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to lay off 10,000 of the Department’s 80,000 employeees. Entire divisions will be eliminated or merged. But no one knows who will be laid off. Decisions about layoffs are being made by Elon Musk’s DOGE. Since no one knows who will be fired or why, everyone is fearful.

Government Executive writes:

The Health and Human Services Department has told its employees that 10,000 of them will soon receive layoff notices, though it has not offered any details on who will be impacted or when they will learn of their fates. 

The uncertainty has dangled over the more than 80,000 HHS employees since Thursday, when the department first announced it was planning to shed around 25% of its workforce and half of those eliminations would come through reductions in force. Leadership at individual components and offices are regularly seeking to update their employees on what is happening, according to seven individuals within HHS, though they have all said they have been fully kept out of the loop and only a small group of political leaders within HHS know the plans.

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to lay off 3,500 employees, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2,400, the National Institutes of Health 1,200 and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 300, according to an HHS fact sheet. HHS did not respond to an inquiry into why the notices were delayed or when they would go out.

Several employees were told to expect RIF notices to hit inboxes on Friday. When that did not happen, they were told to expect them Friday evening or over the weekend. As of Monday afternoon, the notices have still not gone out. 

“FDA leadership doesn’t know who will be cut,” said an employee briefed on the matter. “They didn’t have any input into these cuts whatsoever.” 

Employees at CDC and NIH expressed similar messages were going out from leadership to the workforce. 

“It’s unnecessarily cruel,” said one CDC employee of the uncertainty and delays. 

A second CDC employee said they spent the entire weekend refreshing their email waiting to see if a RIF notice arrived. The employee was resigned to their fate, but wanted an answer: “Just put me out of my misery,” the staffer said. 

Prior to an “all hands” meeting at one NIH office, employees were encouraged to download their complete personnel files, current position description, pay stubs, tax documents, awards information and contact information for human resources and their supervisor in case they lost access upon being laid off. 

The department will not allow those who are subject to RIFs to be allowed back onto HHS campuses, according to two employees briefed on the matter. Some staff were told to bring their laptops homes each day in case they were laid off and not allowed back into their offices. Unlike other agencies that have gone through RIFs, which have immediately placed impacted staff on administrative leave, at least some HHS employees will be expected to work until their date of separation. 

At FDA, conversations with office directors were taking place to identify U.S. Public Health Service Commission Corps members who could escort laid off employees to their desks to collect their laptops and personal belongings. The uniformed personnel would be available for the RIF-affected staff who need to retrieve items on campus.

The RIFs are expected to take effect May 27, according to the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents much of the HHS workforce. That date could get pushed back given the delay in sending out official RIF letters, however, as agencies typically provide 60 days notice before separations take effect. 

Directors at the highest level of the component agencies have communicated “have no knowledge over what is happening,” one employee said in a sentiment echoed by those throughout the department. 

A senior HHS official said even HR at component agencies have received no information on who is being laid off or when the notices were going out, though the latest expectation was the letters would be delivered Monday. 

“Radio silence,” the official said. “It is madness!” 

Government Executive previously reported that top officials were being left out of the workforce reduction process. At NIH, for example, liaisons from the Department of Government Efficiency dictated staffing targets without input from the agency or anyone else at HHS. 

Some informal notices were beginning to trickle out Monday afternoon. CDC is planning to eliminate its entire Freedom of Information Act office, according to an impacted employee, which could create legal questions as agencies are required to maintain those functions. The official notices had not yet gone out as of Monday afternoon but all of the office’s 40 employees are expected to receive them. 

The reductions will be part of a comprehensive reorganization of HHS. The cuts will save $2 billion annually, department Secretary Robert Kennedy said last week, and HHS will go from 28 divisions throughout the department down to 15. Department-wide functions such as human resources, IT, procurement, external affairs and policy will be centralized into the Administration for Healthy America and regional offices will be slashed in half to just five.

The new AHA will fold into its structure the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. HHS will divide up the functions of the Administration for Community Living, which provides oversight of those serving older and disabled Americans, into CMS, the Administration for Children and Families and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. ASPE itself will be combined with the Agency for Health Research and Quality into the Office of Strategy.

This hurried reorganization is being imposed by the young engineers and computer geeks who work for Musk, apparently without consulting anyone who has done the work. The changes are rushed, haphazard, and carried out without the participation of those with knowledge and experience.

Please open the link to continue reading the article.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Health, Musk, Elon, Science, Trump

Texas: Beware of Vouchers!

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2025 //
4

The Texas House of Representatives is moving to a vote on vouchers. Governor Greg Abbott has been pushing vouchers for years, but the House legislators have defeated them again and again, even though Republicans have a super-majority in both houses. The votes were provided by a combination of urban Democrats and rural Republicans. The rural Republicans decided that protecting their local public school was more important than pleasing Governor Abbott.

But then a billionaire in Pennsylvania gave Governor Abbott $6 million so he could defeat the recalcitrant Republicans who blocked vouchers.

Abbott managed to knock off several of the Republicans he targeted by lying about their records. In theory, he has the votes to pass voucher legislation.

But will he? There are still rural Republicans who know that vouchers will destroy their hometown school. How will they vote?

Worse, vouchers have failed wherever they have been tried.

And Texans need to know these facts.

Eight Things to Know – State’s Proposed Education Savings Account Program for Private Schools (March 2025)Download

Eight Things to Know: State’s Proposed Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) for Private Schools

Governor Abbott’s ongoing promotion of universal school choice through taxpayer funded Education Savings Account’s (ESA) focuses on helping low-income, low-performing, and SPED students obtain a better education. However, this material highlights eight things to know that contradict the state’s promotion of taxpayer funded ESAs for private schools.

1.) Taxpayer Cost: The fiscal note for ESAs is $4.6 billion per year in year 2030. In lieu of funding ESAs for private schools, the state could:

 Further reduce property taxes,
 Stop funding public schools below the national average (Texas students are not “Below Average”),
 Provide each Texas public-school graduate with $12,100 to obtain college or technical degrees, or
 Fund public highways versus toll roads.

2.) ESAs Primarily Benefit Students/Families Currently Attending Private Schools: Despite the promotion of providing opportunities for low-income students in public schools, the state estimates that 88% of existing private school students, 9% of home school students, and only 1.8% of current public-school students will receive ESAs (see table below). Source: SB 2 Fiscal Note

2.) Arizona and Universal School Choice: With Arizona being the first state to provide universal school choice, Governor Abbott invited former Governor Ducey to promote the importance of universal school choice at a recent press conference. But no one mentioned that the 2024 NAEP scores of Arizona are among the lowest in the nation and significantly below the NAEP scores of Texas, especially for English Language Learners and Economically Disadvantaged students that ESAs are supposed to benefit. Source: The Nation’s Report Card.

5.) State Currently Funds School Choice With Separate System of Charters and Unproven Results: Over the last 30-years, the State has directed taxpayer funding to provide school choice in local communities through a separate system of privately managed charter schools. Currently, charters:
 Operate 905 schools,
 Enroll over 420,000 students,
 Annually receive taxpayer funding of $4.6 billion,
 Serve students with lower teacher experience, fewer certified teachers, higher student to teacher ratios, administrative costs, and attrition rates compared to locally governed public schools, and
 Underperform locally governed school districts (see “2024 STAAR” below). Source: Texas Education Agency and Txreasearchportal.com.

6.) Admission Policies Mitigate Low-Income, Low-Performing and SPED Student Enrollment: Private school admission requirements directly limit of the enrollment of current low-income, low-performing, and SPED public school students. Based upon various Texas private school Student/Parent Handbooks, private schools restrict admissions based upon academic performance, religious persuasion, special needs/learning differences, and/or cost.
 Academic Performance: Private schools often require students to be “at grade level,” thereby prohibiting the enrollment of low-performing students. Example Student/Parent Handbook – Admissions:

“The student must test at grade level (50 percentile) or above in mathematics and reading on a nationally recognized standardized test…No accommodations are provided for entrance testing.”

“Once students are placed on academic probation (for not achieving a GPA of at least 2.0), they will be given one semester to improve their academic performance to a level of 70%. If not achieved, the student may be required to withdraw from the school

 Religious Persuasion: Religious educational institutions are exempt from Civil Rights legislation relating to the enrollment and acceptance of individuals with a particular religious persuasion. For example, a new non-Catholic student is the last enrollment priority at many Catholic schools. Example Student/Parent Handbook – Admissions:

Enrollment Priority – Children of:
1.) Faculty,
2.) Active parishioners with siblings in school,
3.) Active parishioners without siblings in school,
4.) Non-Active parishioners with siblings in school,
5.) Non-active parishioners without siblings in school,
6.) Catholics that are parishioners of other Catholic communities,
7.) Non-Catholics with siblings in school, and
8.) Non-Catholics.

Further enrollment limitations for non—Catholic students may also be higher tuition relative to Catholic students.

2024/25 Tuition: Catholic – $8,160 and Non-Catholic – $10,408

 Special Needs/Learning Differences: While there are certainly private schools that focus on serving students with special needs/learning differences, private schools are not required to follow the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and may choose to discriminate against students with disabilities. Example Student/Parent Handbook – Admissions:

“The school does not admit students with more severe learning differences or those requiring extensive special education services… (To be admitted), the family must provide current diagnostic testing that recognizes the student’s performance on recognized aptitude testing is 90 or higher.”

“Private schools are not required to significantly alter their programs, lower, or modify their standards to accommodate a child with special needs.”

 ESA Does Not Cover the Cost of Private Schools: SB 2 provides a $10,000 ESA for students to attend a private school. For low-income students, the amount is insufficient to cover the $14,750 estimated average annual private school cost, which is $11,350 for tuition and $3,400 for fees (application, testing, enrollment, computer, sports, club fees, transportation, mandatory parent service hours, and uniforms).

7.) Choice Forces Public-School Closures that Denys the “School Choice” of Public-School Families: It has become common for urban, suburban, and rural school districts to close high-performing campuses due to declining enrollment due to the state’s expansion of charters. In fact, school districts have recently closed over 125 campuses due to the expansion of state-approved charters. As such, providing school choice for certain students is disrupting and denying the school choice for over 50,000 students experiencing closure of their public school. With the state projecting 98,000 existing public-school students will utilize ESAs to attend private schools, additional public-school closures are imminent, and ESAs will further deny choice for families choosing their public school.

8.) Voters Consistently Defeat School Choice: Despite claims the majority of Texans support school choice, voters have defeated school choice initiatives placed ono the ballot in every state. In 2024, voters in Colorado and the conservative states of Kentucky and Nebraska repealed or defeated school choice initiatives for private schools.

Categories Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Texas, Vouchers

Trump Takes Control of the Smithsonian

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2025 //
23

Trump can’t keep his hands off anything. In his mad dash to be king, he has decided to reshape the Smithsonian Institution. Will he close exhibits he doesn’t like? We know he’s completely ignorant of history, so whatever he does will suit his prejudices. He has put JD Vance in charge. Will he withdraw references to “the trail of tears”? Will he remove references to the brutality of slavery?

Kelsey Ables of The Washington Post reported:

The Smithsonian, a sprawling, 21-museum institution tasked with telling the story of the United States and much more, could see changes under President Donald Trump, who in a Thursday executive order set his sights on ridding the institution of ideas that he says “undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States.”

According to a White House fact sheet summarizing the order, the president has instructed the vice president “to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the institution’s entities.

Trump’s unprecedented call to influence programming at an institution that has operated largely independently for its more than 175-year history raises questions about the fate of millions of items the country holds in what’s sometimes called “the nation’s attic.”

But who runs and funds the Smithsonian and can Trump overhaul it like he is the federal government? Here’s what to know.

The Smithsonian was created by Congress in 1846 with funds from James Smithson, a British scientist who left his estate to the United States to establish an institution “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Smithson never visited the United States, though his remains are now housed at the Smithsonian Institution Building, known as the Castle.

These days, the Smithsonian is about 62 percent federally funded by a combination of congressional appropriation along with federal grants and contracts. The rest comes from trust funds or nonfederal sources, which include endowments, donations and memberships, as well as revenue from magazines, restaurants, concessions and more. The institution’s federal budget for the 2024 fiscal year was more than $1 billion.

Is the Smithsonian a government agency?

No, the Smithsonian is not a federal agency but a “trust instrumentality” of the United States, tasked with carrying out the responsibilities undertaken by Congress when it accepted Smithson’s donation. It’s overseen by the secretary, currently Lonnie G. Bunch III, who is appointed by the Board of Regents — made up of the chief justice, vice president, three members of the Senate, three members of the House and nine citizens.

The Smithsonian describes itself as the “world’s largest museum, education, and research complex” and includes 21 museums — two in development — 14 education and research centers, and the National Zoo. It holds a dizzying array of objects, from fighter jets hanging from the high ceilings of the Udvar-Hazy Center all the way down to the tiny specimens at the National Museum of Natural History.

Categories Art, Bigotry, Disruption, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Science, Stupid, Trump, Vance, J.D.

Audrey Watters: The Dangerous Politics of Ed-Tech

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2025 //
2

Audrey Watters is a veteran blogger who has written about Ed-tech for many years, including a book about the history of Ed-tech, Teaching Machines: A History of Personalized Learning. Ed-tech concerns all of us so you might consider following her blog.

This entry describes an upcoming conference where ASU and Global Silicon Valley bring together Ed-tech entrepreneurs to coo over the lucrative markets just around the corner.

She begins:

The Secretary of Education Linda McMahon will speak at the ASU+GSV Summit next month.

The conference makes no mention in its blurb promoting the Secretary’s appearance of what happened last week: President Trump’s executive order to dismantle her department. There’s no mention of any of the other actions that this administration has taken since January to undermine public education: defunding federal programs, firing federal employees, suing colleges, withholding funding, undermining civil rights initiatives, slashing university research, targeting trans students and athletes, arresting and deporting foreign students and professors. No mention at all of any controversy or crisis. Just this: “Guided by our North Star of unity, the ASU+GSV Summit brings together leaders shaping the future of learning and work—because when all voices are heard, innovation thrives to improve education and access for ALL.”

And that, my friends, is some bullshit.

The ASU+GSV Summit, held every year since 2010, is one of the go-to events of the year for entrepreneurs and investors, a gathering place for those seeking to reform (read: privatize) education. The only “unity” I’ve witnessed at the event – both in person and from afar – has been in the conformity of its attendees to a neoliberal vision for a technological future of individualized achievement…

Indeed, it’s quite telling that many who work in and with education technology seem awfully amped about what’s going on – the cooing about the possibility of more technology now that the Department of Education is being gutted, not to mention, of course, the non-stop narratives about the inevitability, the promise of AI in schools – impossible not read as a threat alongside DOGE’s plans to “unleash AI” across the public sphere. All this should underscore that education technology is an industry, a field that appears quite comfortable with its complicity in this autocratic move away from democracy and towards fascism.

“Not me!” perhaps you’re spluttering. “That’s not what I think.” “That’s not how I use technology.” “That’s not what my school is doing.” “That’s not the product we’re building.” But I’m not sure how long people can keep saying this when ideology, when evidence, when procurement not just points but pushes in another direction. 

It’s akin to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s description of the enigma of “racism without racists“: funny how we have woken up in techno-fascism without anyone being techno-fascist.

See, ASU+GSV isn’t some weird outlier. It is ed-tech. And the most powerful voices in ed-tech have, for some time now, called for the end of public education, the end of teachers’ unions, the end of local school boards, the end of democracy. 

This isn’t some recent or radical takeover of ed-tech either – folks, the fascist phone-call is coming from inside the building. It’s been ringing off the hook for decades now.

In the second portion of this post, Watters describes two new Ed-tech startups inspired by Elon Musk. She relates the new Ed-tech ventures and AI enthusiasm to the rebirth of eugenics and the resurgence of white supremacy and racism. Some of the Ed-tech gurus reject democracy altogether.

You should read the piece in its entirety. I found it on the web, read it for free, then subscribed.

Categories Curriculum, Disruption, Education Industry, Fake, For-Profit, Fraud, Teaching, Technology

ICE Grabs Turkish Ph.D Student at Tufts and Detains Her in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2025 //
17

ICE has become the American Gestapo. They are snatching foreign students on American campuses and whisking them away, often to undisclosed locations, with no hearings, no due process.

The latest snatch-and-grab occurred yesterday at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

The Boston Globe reported:

The Trump administration’s campaign against pro-Palestinian activists reached the Boston area Tuesday evening when an international PhD student at Tufts was arrested by masked federal immigration agents on a residential street and sent to a detention facility in Louisiana, according to federal immigration records and the student’s attorney.

Plainclothes officers handcuffed Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old Turkish national in the US on a student visa, and loaded her into an unmarked SUV with tinted windows as she pleaded for explanations, according to video of the arrest. She was transferred to Louisiana despite a federal judge ordering US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tuesday night not to remove Ozturk from Massachusetts without prior notice.

The precise timing of Ozturk’s transfer to Louisiana and the issuance of the judge’s order was unclear.

It was also unclear why the government targeted Ozturk, who is doctoral candidate at Tufts department of child study and human development. She had voiced support for the pro-Palestinian movement at Tufts, but was not known as a prominent leader. Her lawyer said she is not aware of any charges against her.

“I don’t understand why it took the government nearly 24 hours to let me know her whereabouts,” her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, said. ”Why she was transferred to Louisiana despite the court’s order is beyond me. Rumeysa should immediately be brought back to Massachusetts, released, and allowed to return to complete her PhD program.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security asserted Ozturk “engaged in support of Hamas,” a US-designated terror group behind the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that led to Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza, but did not provide evidence of that claim.

“A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated,” the spokesperson said.

A screen grab from a video shows Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, in white coat, being approached by federal immigration authorities before being detained on Tuesday, March 25 in Somerville.

Ozturk is the latest international student arrested by the Trump administration, which has vowed to deport non-citizen pro-Palestinian activists whom it accuses of engaging in antisemitic or illegal protests. That campaign is part of Trump’s wider crackdown on elite universities, including funding cuts, bans on diversity programs, and investigations over schools’ alleged inaction on antisemitism.

Earlier in March, Trump’s antisemitism task force canceled $400 million of federal funding for Columbia University. The administration also arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia graduate and Algerian citizen who was a leader of the school’s pro-Palestinian movement. Officials are trying to deport him, too, after Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared his continued presence in the United States was detrimental to US foreign policy.

Agents have also arrested a researcher at Georgetown University from India and sought the arrest of another Columbia student, an immigrant from South Korea, as President Trump vowed that Khalil’s detention was “the first arrest of many to come.”

The administration recently told dozens of schools, including Tufts, they may face sanctions for failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic harassment.

Ozturk’s lawyer said information about her client was recently added to Canary Mission, a website that compiles information about pro-Palestinian students and professors, and which activists say has led to harassment and doxxing. The website noted Ozturk co-wrote an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper last year criticizing the university’s response to the pro-Palestinian movement, urging Tufts to “end its complicity with Israel insofar as it is oppressing the Palestinian people and denying their right to self-determination.”

Pro-Palestinian activists and free speech advocates have decried the arrests as unconstitutional repression of political speech.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell called the footage of the arrest “disturbing.”

“Based on what we now know, it is alarming that the federal administration chose to ambush and detain her, apparently targeting a law-abiding individual because of her political views. This isn’t public safety. It’s intimidation that will, and should, be closely scrutinized in court,” Campbell said.

Ozturk’s arrest took place slightly after 5 p.m. Tuesday on Mason Street in Somerville near Tufts, according to a resident who witnessed the arrest and spoke with the Globe on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation by the government, as well as security camera footage obtained by the Globe.

While walking his dog, the witness said, he saw a woman screaming outside a house. Half a dozen officers in plainclothes and wearing masks surrounded her, he said. As they handcuffed her, she cried and said, “OK, OK, but I’m a student,” he recalled.

Then they placed her in an unmarked SUV with tinted windows….

Reyyan Bilge, an assistant teaching professor in psychology at Northeastern University, told the Globe she has known Ozturk for more than a decade since Bilge taught Ozturk at Şehir University in Istanbul. Ozturk came to the United States to get her master’s degree at Columbia as a Fulbright scholar, Bilge said.

She graduated in 2020 from the developmental psychology program at Columbia Teacher’s College, according to a 2021 social media post by the school.

Bilge described Ozturk as soft-spoken and kind. “If you were to actually have a chat with her for about five minutes, you would understand how kind and how decent a person she is,” she said….

Tufts University president Sunil Kumar disclosed the arrest in a campus-wide message Tuesday night.

The university “had no pre-knowledge” of the arrest, he said, and Tufts did not share information with authorities, adding that the location of the arrest was not affiliated with the university.

The university was told Ozturk’s visa status was “terminated,” Kumar said in the email.

“We realize that tonight’s news will be distressing to some members of our community, particularly the members of our international community,” he said.

In a three-page order issued Tuesday, federal Judge Indira Talwani ordered ICE to submit a written explanation for relocating Ozturk and notify the court 48 hours before any effort takes place to allow the judge time to review the added information.

Ozturk’s lawyer filed a habeas petition in court on Tuesday asking for her release. Talwani also directed ICE officials to respond to the petition by Friday.

All of Ozturk’s family is in Turkey, and she only has friends here in the United States, Bilge said.

Bilge said Ozturk would never say anything to hurt anyone. “She’s not antisemitic,” Bilge said. But like many other Muslims, Bilge said, Ozturk is concerned about the human rights of Palestinian people. “But that’s freedom of speech,” Bilge said. “That’s just being human.”

On Wednesday evening, more than 2,000 people rallied insupport of Ozturk at a park near Powder House Square and the Tufts campus. Among them were students from Tufts and Harvard, as well as residents from the surrounding neighborhoods. Some wore keffiyehs, a patterned scarf associated with Palestinian nationalism. Others wore yarmulkes, the Jewish skullcap. “Stand up, fight back!” they chanted.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Higher Education, Immigration, Injustice, Massachusetts, Trump

Washington Post: DOGE Cuts Plunge Social Security into Chaos

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2025 //
25

Elon Musk’s team of vandals, known as DOGE, have raided government agencies in search of deep cuts that they can take credit for. Most of their claims of savings turn out to be false or inflated but they persist in canceling contracts and firing government employees. The effects are now being felt at the Social Security Administration.

Lisa Rein and Hannah Natanson of The Washington Post write:

The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.

And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining its ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.

Financial services executive Frank Bisignano is scheduled to face lawmakers Tuesday during a Senate confirmation hearing as President Donald Trump’s pick to become the permanent commissioner. For now, the agency is run by a caretaker leader in his sixth week on the job who has raced to push out more than 12 percent of the staff of 57,000. He has conceded that the agency’s phone service “sucks” and acknowledged that Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service is really in charge, pushing a single-minded mission to find benefits fraud despite vast evidence that the problem is overstated.

The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and legal immigrants who need Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether, according to those familiar with the problems.

“What’s going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out, and it’s accelerating,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said in an interview. “I have people approaching me all the time in their 70s and 80s, and they’re beside themselves. They don’t know what’s coming.”

King’s home state has the country’s oldest population. “What they’re doing now is unconscionable,” he said.

Leland Dudek — the accidental leader elevated to acting commissioner after he fed data to Musk’s team behind his bosses’ backs — has issued rapid-fire policy changes that have created chaos for front-line staff. Under pressure from the secretive Musk team, Dudek has pushed out dozens of officials with years of expertise in running Social Security’s complex benefit and information technology systems. Others have left in disgust.

The moves have upended an agency that, despite the popularity of its programs, has been underfunded for years, faces potential insolvency in a decade and has been led by four commissioners in five months — just one of them Senate-confirmed. The latest controversy came last week, when Dudek threatened to shut down operations in response to a federal judge’s ruling that Dudek claimed would leave no one with access to beneficiaries’ personal information to serve them.

Alarmed lawmakers are straining to answer questions from angry constituents in their districts. Calls have flooded into congressional offices. The AARP announced on Monday that more than 2,000 retirees per week have called the organization since early February — double the usual number — with concerns about whether benefits they paid for during their working careers will continue. Social Security is the primary source of income for about 40 percent of older Americans…

With aging technology systems and a $15 billion budget that has stayed relatively flat over a decade, Social Security was already struggling to serve the public amid an explosion of retiring baby boomers. The staff that reviews claims for two disability programs was on life support following massive pandemic turnover — and still takes 233 days on average to review an initial claim.

But current and former officials, advocates and others who interact with the agency — many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution — said Social Security has been damaged even further by the rapid cuts and chaos of Trump’s first two months in office. Many current and former officials fear it’s part of a long-sought effort by conservatives to privatize all or part of the agency….

Musk’s DOGE team began poring through Social Security’s massive trove of private data on millions of Americans, working in a fourth-floor conference room at the Woodlawn, Maryland, headquarters, with blackout curtains on the windows and an armed security guard posted outside.


Their obsession with false claims that millions of deceased people were fraudulently receiving benefits consumed the DOGE team at first. Then came new mandates designed to address alleged fraud: Direct deposit transactions and identity authentication that affect almost everyone receiving benefits will no longer be able to be done by phone. Customers with computers will be directed to go through the process online — and those without access to one to wait in line at their local field office. A change announced internally last week will require legal immigrants with authorization to work in the United States and newly naturalized citizens to apply for or update their Social Security cards in person, eliminating a long-standing practice that sent the cards automatically through the mail.

The article goes on much longer to describe the confusion and chaos among elderly people seeking information. Wait times for telephone calls, which used to be answered to 10-15 minutes, may take two hours, three hours or longer.

DOGE is making government less efficient.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Musk, Elon, Trump

Peter Greene: Why the Department of Education Matters

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2025 //
6

Peter Greene, veteran teacher, master writer, the voice of wisdom and experience, sets the record straight about the purpose of the U.S. Department of Education. Contrary to what wrestling-entrepreneur Linda McMahon (Trump’s Secretary of Education) says, the Department was not created to raise test scores. The Department was created to promote equal access to educational opportunity. That equalization of resources has not yet been achieved, but Trump intends to abolish the goal altogether. In his thinking, everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, unlike him, who was born into wealth and privilege.

Peter Greene writes:

The official assault on the Department of Education has begun.

If it seems like there’s an awful lot more talking around this compared to, say, the gutting of the IRS or USAID, that may be because the regime doesn’t have the legal authority to do the stuff that they are saying they want to do. The executive order is itself pretty weak sauce– “the secretary is to investigate a way to form a way to do stuff provided it’s legal.” And that apparently involves sitting down in front of every camera and microphone and trying to make a case.

A major part of that involves some lies and misdirection. The Trumpian line that we spend more than anyone and get the worst results in the world is a lie. But it is also a misdirection, a misstatement about the department’s actual purpose.

Likewise, it’s a misstatement when the American Federation of Children characterizes the “failed public policy” of “the centralization of American education.” But the Department wasn’t meant–or built–to centralize US education.

The department’s job is not to make sure that American education is great. It is expressly forbidden to exert control over the what and how of education on the state and local level.

The Trump administration is certainly not the first to ignore any of that. One of the legacies of No Child Left Behind is the idea that feds can grab the levers of power to attempt control of education in the states. Common Core was the ultimate pretzel– “Don’t call it a curriculum because we know that would be illegal, but we are going to do our damnedest to standardize the curriculum across every school in every state.” For twenty-some years, various reformsters have tried to use the levers of power in DC to reconfigure US education as a centrally planned and coordinated operation (despite the fact that there is nowhere on the globe to point to that model as a successful one). And even supporters of the department are speaking as if the department is an essential hub for the mighty wheel of US education.

Trump is just working with the tools left lying around by the bipartisan supporters of modern education reform.

So if the department’s mission is not to create central organization and coordination, then what is it?

I’d argue that the roots of the department are not the Carter administration, but the civil rights movement of the sixties and the recognition that some states and communities, left to their own devices, would try to cheat some children out of the promise of public education. Derek Black’s new book Dangerous Learning traces generations of attempts to keep Black children away from education. It was (roughly) the 1960s when the country started to grapple more effectively with the need for federal power to oppose those who would stand between children and their rights.

The programs that now rest with the department came before the department itself, programs meant to level the playing field so that the poor (Title I) and the students with special needs (IDEA) would get full access. The creation of the department stepped up that effort and, importantly, added an education-specific Civil Rights office to the effort.

And it was all created to very carefully not usurp the power of the states. When Trump says he’ll return control of education to the states, he’s speaking bunk, because the control of education has always remained with the states– for better or worse.

The federal mission was to make the field more level, to provide guardrails to keep the states playing fair with all students, to make sure that students had the best possible access to the education they were promised.

Trump has promised that none of the grant programs or college loan programs would be cut (and you can take a Trump promise to the… well, somewhere) but if all the money is still going to keep flowing, then what would the loss of the department really mean?

For one thing, the pieces that aren’t there any more. The Office of Civil Rights is now gutted and repurposed to care only about violations of white christianist rights. The National Center of Education Statistics was the source of any data about how education was working out (much of it junk, some of it not). The threat of turning grants into unregulated block grants, or being withheld from schools that dare to vaccinate or recognize diversity or keep naughty books in the library.

So the money will still flow, but the purpose will no longer be to level the playing field. It will not be about making sure every child gets the education they’re entitled to– or rather, it will rest on the MAGA foundation, the assumption that some people deserve less than others.

That’s what the loss of the department means– a loss of a department that, however imperfectly, is supposed to protect the rights of students to an education, regardless of race, creed, zip code, special needs, or the disinterest and prejudice of a state or community. Has the department itself lost sight of that mission from time to time? Sure has. Have they always done a great job of pursuing that mission? Not at all. But if nobody at all is supposed to be pursuing that goal, what will that get us?

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, For-Profit, Funding, Hoax, Hypocrisy, Inequality, Inequity, Injustice, Poverty, Privatization, Racism, Republicans, School Choice, Trump, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Thom Hartmann: In Trump’s America, ICE Can Detain Anyone–Even You–Without Cause or a Hearing

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2025 //
9

As I read this frightening post by Thom Hartmann, I was reminded of the many times in first term that he longed for protestors or suspects to be roughed up. He spoke to police officers in New York and urged them not to be so gentle when they apprehended suspects. He encouraged his audience to beat up troublemakers and send him their legal bills. He has a strange love of violence, though he himself dodged the draft five times.

Hartmann describes the freedom of ICE to arrest and detain anyone without a warrant, without any due process. Where is this going?

It can happen here. It is happening here.

Hartmann writes:

Imagine stepping off a plane in the United States, fully expecting to enter the country without issue, only to be surrounded by armed agents, handcuffed, and thrown into a freezing detention center. No trial. No lawyer. No contact with the outside world.

In Trump’s America, you are no longer guaranteed your rights or freedom—because now, it takes nothing more than an ICE agent’s “suspicion” to make you disappear.

This isn’t a mistake. It’s part of an expanding system of cruelty, where ICE—once an agency tasked with immigration enforcement—is now operating like an unchecked police force, targeting legal residents, visitors, and even US citizens with impunity.

They have become—since the days when Trump sent them here into Portland without ID to kidnap citizens off the streets and torment them in 2020—the Führer’s private police force. His very own “protection squads” or Schutzstaffel.

People who follow every rule, complete all the required paperwork, and obey every regulation are still finding themselves locked away, held in horrific conditions, and stripped of their rights—all based on the whims of an agent who doesn’t even need evidence to justify an arrest.

A U.S. citizen from Chicago was among 22 people recently subjected to unlawful arrests and detention by ICE. The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that during Trump’s first term, immigration authorities asked to hold approximately 600 likely citizens and actually deported about 70 likely citizens.

But now, in part because of the Laken Riley Act, it’s getting worse. Forty-two Democrats in the House and fourteen in the Senate voted to pass this execrable GOP bill last month; it was named after a young woman murdered by an undocumented alien whose story was relentlessly promoted by Fox “News” and other rightwing hate media.

That law, recently signed by Trump, says that ICE now has the authority to detain anybody — anybody — for an indefinite period of time — no time limit whatsoever — if an ICE agent simply says that he or she “suspects” the person is in the country illegally or without documentation.

Did you think, “It can’t happen here”?

Wake up: Trump has already begun putting it into effect, although our media seem curiously silent about its application.

Fabian Schmidt, a German-born engineer, has lived in the United States for nearly two decades, legally working, paying taxes, and contributing to his community. None of that mattered when he returned home from a trip abroad. As soon as he landed at Logan Airport in Boston, ICE agents pulled him aside. His green card renewal was “flagged” for some unknown reason—no explanation, no opportunity to clarify, just a red mark in a government system.

That was all it took. ICE stripped him of his clothes, subjected him to hours of aggressive questioning, and locked him in a detention center. They threw him into an ice-cold shower and left him shivering on the concrete floor, humiliated and terrified.

For days, his mother, Astrid, desperately tried to find him. She called ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and any agency that might give her an answer. They either ignored her or outright lied, claiming they had no record of her son. When she finally learned where he was, Fabian was barely holding himself together. “They treat us like animals,” he told her.

And why was he there? Because of a supposed “bureaucratic error.” ICE used a minor paperwork issue as an excuse to detain a legal resident of the United States without due process, a tactic that’s becoming frighteningly common.

For Jessica Brösche, a German tattoo artist, her visit to the United States was supposed to be brief—just a trip to see friends and enjoy the country. She had a valid passport, a return ticket, and legal permission to enter under the Visa Waiver Program. Yet, ICE decided that she might try to work while visiting, a baseless assumption that required no proof and no justification. 

Just “suspicion.” That was enough to detain her indefinitely.

Once inside, the nightmare deepened. They threw her into a cell with no bed and no access to legal assistance. For eight straight days, they kept her in solitary confinement. The lights never dimmed, and the sounds of other detainees screaming in despair echoed through the walls. She started hallucinating, her grip on reality slipping. Desperate to feel something, anything real, she punched the walls until her knuckles bled.

Meanwhile, her best friend, Amelia, searched frantically for her. ICE refused to confirm her location or even acknowledge that they had detained her. No charges, no trial, no legal recourse—just silence.

Jessica’s case isn’t unique. People who follow all immigration rules are being detained under vague suspicions, often disappearing into a bureaucratic black hole. And once they’re inside the system, their rights mean nothing.

Consider Jasmine Mooney, the actor who starred in the American Pie franchise and a Canadian businesswoman who played by the rules. She secured a job offer, completed all visa paperwork, and followed every U.S. immigration law to the letter. But that didn’t stop ICE from shackling her, chaining her wrists, ankles, and waist as if she were a violent offender.

For days, she was trapped in a brutal private, for-profit detention facility, laying on the bare floor with nothing but a crinkled foil sheet for warmth. Then, in the dead of night, ICE dragged her from her cell, bound her in chains again, and forced her onto a bus with dozens of other women. They drove for hours, denying them food, water, or bathroom breaks. By the time she arrived at another facility, she had been awake for 24 hours and was too weak to stand.

To this day, ICE refuses to explain why she was detained. And why would they? They don’t have to. The agency operates with absolute power, detaining people for as long as they want, answering to no one.

Moody tells her horrifying story to The Guardian, writing:

“I was then placed in a real jail unit: two levels of cells surrounding a common area, just like in the movies. I was put in a tiny cell alone with a bunk bed and a toilet. …

“There were around 140 of us in our unit. Many women had lived and worked in the US legally for years but had overstayed their visas – often after reapplying and being denied. They had all been detained without warning.”

These aren’t isolated cases. ICE has transformed itself into an authoritarian force that detains people indefinitely on suspicion alone. No evidence? No trial? No problem.

And the for-profit prison industry that’s holding many if not most of them has no incentive to help these people; the more they detail and the longer they stay, the more money the prison companies make (which they then share as campaign donations with Republican politicians).

ICE agents don’t need proof. They only need the power to act—and Trump has given it to them.

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Categories Accountability, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Immigration, Injustice, Shame, Trump, Tyranny

Rep. Rosa DeLauro: Trump and Musk Want to Fire Nearly 300,000 Teachers

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2025 //
7

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut is a stalwart ally of public schools. When Democrats controlled the House of Representatives, she was chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee and she will be again when Democrats regain control of the House. She knows the federal budget.

Check her attachment to see how many teachers will be laid off in YOUR Congressional district. The deep cuts will affect both Republican and democratic districts.

Rep. DeLauro issued a warning about the deep cuts to education that Trump and Musk are planning:

WASHINGTON — Last week, through his unlawful executive order, President Trump took another step in his plan to eliminate the Department of Education. Next, he plans to eliminate Title I grants that help 26 million students learn. House Appropriations Committee and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro released a new fact sheet detailing the number of teachers in each district that stand to be kicked out of the classroom, leaving millions of students across the country without a teacher.

 “We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, and Elon Musk and President Trump are making it worse. President Trump promised to fight for the working class, but instead, he put Elon Musk and billionaires in charge of the government. His plan to eliminate Title I grants that help 26 million students in schools across the country would mean that nearly 300,000 teachers across the United States stand to be kicked out of the classroom. This would leave millions of students without a teacher. President Trump and unchecked billionaire Elon Musk do not care about helping hardworking people build a better life or helping our kids learn. They care only about tax breaks for billionaires and the biggest corporations.”

 A fact sheet on the number of teachers in each district that stand to be kicked out of the classroom is here.

 Ranking Member DeLauro’s previous statements on the unlawful elimination of Education employees can be found here and here.

 Her letter to Secretary McMahon demanding answers to mass firings is here. Her February statement on Elon Musk’s and President Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education is here.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Disruption, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Funding, Musk, Elon, Poverty, Stupid, Teachers, Trump
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