Archives for category: Education Reform
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Mercedes Schneider on Betsy DeVos’ First Public Speech

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2017 //
24

Mercedes Schneider reprinted Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s first public speech.

The one point that comes through is that she is totally in the dark about why her nomination encountered massive public resistance. To the public, she is an unqualified, uninformed enemy of public schools.

But Betsy thinks she ran into opposition because public school educators are opposed to her innovative ideas!

Privatization is not new. Charters have been around since 1990–26 years–and is is now well-established that most are no better than public schools, some are far worse, and they are not innovative.

Vouchers are not innovative. Milwaukee has had since 1990, Cleveland since 1995, and DC since 2004. There are among the lowest performing urban districts in the country.

DeVos has no new ideas. She is wrapped around School choice, the cause celebre of segregationists for the past 60 years.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Privatization, School Choice

Senate Votes to Allow Mentally Ill to Purchase Guns

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
44

In the wake of the horrific Sandy Hook Massacre of 2012, the Obama administration adopted a regulation preventing mentally ill people from buying guns. Today, the Senate voted 57-43 to eliminate that rule.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/15/515412800/senate-blocks-obama-era-rule-tightening-checks-on-mentally-ill-gun-buyers

“By a 57-43 margin, the Republican-led Senate voted Wednesday to repeal an Obama-era regulation designed to block certain mentally ill people from purchasing firearms. The vote, which approves a House resolution passed earlier this month, now sends the measure to the White House for President Trump’s signature.

“President Trump, who campaigned as a defender of gun rights and a friend of the National Rifle Association, is widely expected to sign the measure.

“The rule on the verge of rollback would have required the Social Security Administration to report the records of some mentally ill beneficiaries to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Those who have been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs — roughly 75,000 people — would have been affected by the rule, according to NPR’s Susan Davis.

“It was implemented by former President Obama after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, which saw 20 students and six teachers killed at an elementary school by 20-year-old Adam Lanza. The Hill reports that the rule was set to take effect in December.”

Are they crazy?

Categories Education Reform

My Response to the Poll of Readers

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
76

This morning I asked you to comment on whether I should post less about Trump and more about education.

Hundreds of readers responded.

Most said that politics and education are inseparable. One reminded me of Dewey’s classic book “School and Society,” which reinforced the point that we educate children so as to prepare them to build a better society. We teach them civility so they will be civil to others. We teach them to think and inform themselves so they will be thinking citizens. Over time, if we educate our children well, it will make our society better. We invest in our future by educating our students well.

A few readers said I should write about education and leave Trump alone. This is actually impossible, because Trump wants to destabilize and defund public education. He and his choice for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, want public schools to compete for dollars with charters, cybercharters, religious schools, for-profit schools, and home-schooling, all funded by the public. He is not proposing new funding to pay for all these choices. He intends to defund public schools by dividing the funding many ways. The preponderance of research says that none of these alternatives are superior to public schools. Some are far, far worse.

Then there is Betsy DeVos. What an insult to educators and parents and students to select a Secretary of Education who is unqualified and hostile to public schools. She has spent thirty years dedicated to school choice.

So the bottom line is that I will Tweet the news that you can easily find on mainstream TV and radio and newspapers.

But I will continue to write about education, the politics of education, the history of education, and the importance of public schools.

I will continue to post silly things and funny things that appeal to me.

I will continue to oppose privatization of public schools, demonization of educators, and the misuse of standardized testing to rank children and schools.

I count on you to join the conversation. Keep me informed.

Oh, and I will write whatever I want.

Categories Education Reform

Trump’s “Listening Session,” Where Everyone Listens to Him

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
23

Thanks to reader Chiara, who sent this video:

“You have to watch the DeVos/Trump “listening session”

“Trump is reading off sheets of paper and he goes on and on and on- all bragging- and everyone else sits around and listens to him.

“They invited those poor people there and then Trump bored them to death talking about himself.

“They don’t seem to know how bad this is. It isn’t a “listening session”. It’s an “everyone sit around and listen to this braggart bore talk about himself”

Categories Education Reform

Myra Blackmon: Georgia Doesn’t Need Vouchers

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
2

Myra Blackmon writes for Online Athens in Georgia.

In this post, she explains why vouchers are not needed in Georgia.

 

With the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as U.S. secretary of education, we can expect to see a flurry of new “initiatives” designed to address the so-called education problem in our country. For the moment, let’s set aside the relationship of poverty and poor academic achievement. Ignore for a moment the fact that our schools are actually performing pretty well.

“We will likely see a renewed push for voucher programs, where parents can supposedly take the tax money allocated for their children and use it to enroll them in private, religious or charter schools, many of which are combinations of those categories.

“If I believed vouchers would improve educational outcomes for Georgia’s poorest children, I would be the first to jump on that bandwagon. The reality is that even vouchers aren’t likely to improve the lives of the 600,000 Georgia children who live in poor or low-income families, despite efforts of reformers to convince us otherwise.

“First, it will be almost impossible to set a fair amount for a voucher. I spent over an hour looking at websites of private schools in all parts of the state. I found tuition ranges from around $4,000 a year to $26,000 a year. One site says the average elementary school tuition is almost $9,000, and high school almost $11,000. How do you determine an amount that would give children “the best education?”

“Second, not all non-public schools are open to all children. The majority of private schools in Georgia are religious schools, many of which set very strict standards for admission that have little or nothing to do with academic potential. They would exclude children from families of same-sex couples, or families whose moral standards are, in the judgment of the school, not consistent with the school’s values. That might exclude children whose parents are not married, or who were behavioral problems at their previous school.

“Third, few private schools provide special education. Of those that do, many limit that special education to mild learning disabilities, or limit them to mild ADHD or other learning differences. The private special education schools I found charged tuition upward of $25,000 a year, and even they don’t address severe or complex disabilities. Only public schools are required to meet all those needs.”

There is more. Read it all.

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Georgia, Vouchers

Texas: The Fight Against Vouchers Begins Again

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
12

Texas has a Lt. Governor named Adan Patrick who hates public schools. Before he was elected to the legislature, he was a radio talk show host, a small-time rightwing shock jock. Patrick’s favorite cause is vouchers and defunding public schools. He needs to be reminded that “school choice” originated as the battle cry of white segregationists after the Brown decision of 1954. But maybe he knows that.

In this legislative session, vouchers will once again be debated. The Texas Senate, dominated by the hard right, will support them. The House will wage a spirited battle over them. In the past, vouchers died in the House because of a coalition of urban Democrats and rural Republicans who treasure their public schools. Under the leadership of the House Speaker Joe Strauss, vouchers have not been approved. But the potential for passage is always there.

One of the most effective opponents of vouchers is the group Pastors for Texas Children, led by Rev. Charles Foster Johnson. It has 2,000 members across the state of Texas and is helping to organize similar groups of pro-public school clergy in other states.

Here is his most recent statement in response to Governor Greg Abbott’s endorsement of vouchers.

This is what he wrote:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said today that school choice voucher programs constitute “a civil rights issue” and said he would sign a school choice bill if one comes to him.

With all due respect to Gov. Abbott, voucher-type schemes are the antithesis of civil rights.

“School choice” voucher programs re-segregate our schools according to race.

“School choice” vouchers are not for poor children, as they are purported to be, because they don’t begin to cover the cost of a private school education.

“School choice” vouchers underwrite the private education of families affluent enough to send their children to private schools.

“School choice” vouchers violate religious liberty by establishing and advancing religious schools with public tax dollars.

“School choice” vouchers are unconstitutional because they do not “make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools” as the Texas Constitution mandates the Texas Legislature to do.

“School choice” vouchers deplete the funding of the public schools that do not screen or discriminate, but accept and love all children regardless of race and class.

“School choice” vouchers destabilize and overburden the traditional neighborhood public school.

“School choice” vouchers expand and extend government into the sacred and private spheres of our home and church schools.

“School choice” voucher programs do not improve the education of children who receive them.

“School choice” vouchers are not a real “choice” at all, except for those who would privatize the public trust of education for all children, making commodities of our kids and markets of our classrooms.

The American civil rights tradition was forged by values of human dignity and equality taught and modeled for our children every day in traditional public schools. Hijacking the term “civil rights” to advance the narrow private interest of “school choice” vouchers is morally wrong, and we call upon Gov. Abbott and other Texas state leaders to cease doing so now.

Categories Education Reform, Resistance, Texas, Vouchers

Please Respond to My Poll

By dianeravitch
February 15, 2017 //
498

I have mixed feelings about whether I should continue devoting so many posts to the multiple transgressions of Trump.

On one hand, this is a blog devoted to education.

On the other, I believe we are in the midst of a historic and unprecedented national crisis. We have elected a man who is angry, bitter, ignorant, vengeful, unstable, and tied to the white-supremacist alt-right and the Kremlin.

He has already turned our country into an international laughing stock.

He has appointed a cabinet composed mostly of incompetent, unqualified, or mean-spirited people at odds with the agency they are supposed to lead.

He refuses to divest himself of his conflicts of interest, and several of his appointees–including Betsy DeVos–have followed his example. He has demonstrated contempt for the norms of ethics and transparency in government.

What is the reason for his admiration for Putin? Putin is the richest man in the world. Does Trump owe him billions?

******

I love my country. I vote in every election. I am patriotic. I hate what Trump is doing to our country.

*********

My question to you:

Should I stick to education or continue to speak out on the issues of national significance, as well as education?

I find it hard to separate the two. Should I?

Categories Education Reform

Happy Valentine’s Day!

By dianeravitch
February 14, 2017 //
16

Let’s forget the Orange Menace in the zwhite House for the day and think positive thoughts. Hug your friends. Kiss your loved ones. Call those who are far away and tell them you miss them. Give flowers, sniff flowers. Spread joy.

I love you all. Even those who are persistently annoying.

RESIST by forgetting about HIM for the day.

Enjoy your friends and those you love.

Categories Education Reform

Flynn Resigns

By dianeravitch
February 13, 2017 //
19

Too many contacts with Russians

Flynn resigns amid controversy over Russia contacts – CNN
https://apple.news/AQEedBtalR6a_Lv4TKaxN9w

Categories Education Reform

Time for an Uplifting Story About Kindness and Love

By dianeravitch
February 12, 2017 //
4

The Los Angeles Times published this story about a man who fosters dying babies and children.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-foster-father-sick-children-2017-story.html

It begins like this.

“The children were going to die.

“Mohamed Bzeek knew that. But in his more than two decades as a foster father, he took them in anyway — the sickest of the sick in Los Angeles County’s sprawling foster care system.

“He has buried about 10 children. Some died in his arms.

“Now, Bzeek spends long days and sleepless nights caring for a bedridden 6-year-old foster girl with a rare brain defect. She’s blind and deaf. She has daily seizures. Her arms and legs are paralyzed.”

Unspoken here, barely mentioned, is that Bzeek is Muslim. What shines through is his kindness.

Categories Education Reform
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