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Jeff Bryant: Why Did the Traitor Teacher Switch Parties in North Carolina?

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2023 //
29

Jeff Bryant writes often about education. He lives in North Carolina. In this article, he tries to solve the mystery of why Democratic state legislator Tricia Cotham switched sides and joined the Republican Party, giving them a supermajority in both houses of the General Assembly?

Cotham was a Democrat who had campaigned in promises to oppose school vouchers; to defend LGBT rights; and support abortion rights.

Once she gave the Republicans the decisive vote in the lower house, the Republicans had a veto-proof majority and were in a position to override any veto by Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

Cotham, the new Republican, reversed her vote on everything she campaigned for or against. She supported Republicans’ efforts to reduce abortion rights; she endorsed school vouchers; and she sided with Republicans in their attack on trans youth.

In other words, she betrayed the people who voted for her and cast her lot with the hard-right Republicans who have aligned themselves with anti-progressive, anti-liberal, anti-Democrat policies.

Why? She said the Democrats were mean to her. She said they ignored her. She said she didn’t get the committee assignments she wanted. Are these good reasons to join forces with a party that has sought to destroy public education, demoralize teachers, and gerrymander the state to protect its advantages?

None of this made sense. A person doesn’t change their fundamental values because of hurt feelings.

Jeff investigated and determined that her decision was transactional. What did she get in exchange for double-crossing her constituents and her colleagues? Read his article to find out.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reform, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Democrats, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fraud, Gender, Hypocrisy, Inequity, Lies, North Carolina, Privatization, Republicans, Teachers, Vouchers

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: There Is One Law for Everyone

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2023 //
16

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian of fascism and autocracy, says that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 3-minute speech moved her to tears.

She explains why in this post on her blog Lucid:

Welcome back to Lucid, and a big hello to all new subscribers. I started Lucid in 2021 to separate the signal from the noise in politics and provide big-picture thinking about authoritarianism and threats to democracy in the US and around the world. I use my skills as a historian to identify the patterns and dynamics at work in the news that comes at us every day.


In honor of the Department of Justice indictment of Donald Trump, which is only possible because we live in a democracy, for the next week I am offering a 50% discount on the first year of Lucid so that more people can have access to bonus content like this and to the community that has developed from my weekly live Q&As. You can subscribe or convert your current subscription to paid here: (open the link to see the offer).

The bare-bones conference room, with its ugly folding table and florescent lighting overhead. The standard-issue podium at which Jack Smith, Special Counsel at the Department of Justice, stood with his understated attire and not-made for television haircut. There was no glamour and no media buzz as Smith announced the unsealing of a historic indictment against former president Donald J. Trump for “violations of our national security laws as well as participating in conspiracy to obstruct justice.”

All of it moved me to tears.

Special Counsel Jack Smith press conference, June 8, 2023. C-Span.

As an American, I was outraged when I read the indictment. As a scholar of authoritarianism and one of the first people to label Trump as a threat to our freedoms, I was unsurprised at its content. Trump’s proprietary vision of governance was familiar to me, as was his supremely venal attitude. In the strongman world there are no boundaries between public and private. The leader believes it is his right to possess and exploit for personal benefit anything in the nation, from natural resources to economic assets to information—the latter being the most valuable currency.

“Forced out of the White House after his coup attempt failed, beset by financial worries and multiple investigations, how could Trump fail to cast his greedy eyes on the vast store of classified information available to him?” I wrotein Aug. 2022.

Democracy does not churn out telegenic images of demagogues commanding cheering crowds of fanatics. It does not produce dramatic images of coups, whether old-school takeovers with tanks on the streets or today’s radicalized civilian armies assaulting government buildings, as in the US and Brazil.

Democracy has its rituals and rites of passage, but the everyday work of democracy –a political system built on cultivating consensus, rather than lackeys implementing decisions by one man–can seem boring to those who crave theatrics. It entails endless discussions and careful deliberation in Congress and statehouses around the nation.

And so, Jack Smith appeared in his drab institutional surroundings to deliver a message of historic import. In just over three minutes, he informed the public of the status of the investigation he has overseen while also expressing support for some of the most foundational values of democracy and civil society.

Commitment to National Security

In healthy democracies both liberal and conservative politicians share a commitment to protecting their country’s national security. That’s no longer the case in America, where the GOP has left conservatism behind to become an autocratic entity. Republican lawmakers now align with far-right authoritarian parties and governments in Hungary, Russia, and Brazil that see democratic America as an enemy to be taken down.

Add in the GOP’s loyalty to a cult leader who will sell out anyone and anything for more power and profit, and we have a tragic situation: many Republican lawmakers are no longer committed to America’s national security. This shift is partly responsible for the Republican demonization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), America’s support for NATO (and Ukraine), and the Department of Justice.

Moreover, as Rep. Jim Jordan’s sham House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government has made clear, Trump loyalists do not want the FBI to clean house of extremists, including those apparently loyal to Putin. That is why Jordan defended Steve Friend, an FBI agent who had his security clearance revoked. Friend refused to investigate Jan. 6 insurrectionists, transferred FBI documents to an unauthorized flash drive, and contributed to Kremlin propaganda outlets Russia Today and Sputnik.

This is why Jack Smith started his speech by recognizing the importance of protecting our national security and those who enforce it:

“The men and women of the US intelligence community and the armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that protect national defense information are critical for the safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk.”

Rule of Law

Since today’s autocrats often keep elections going, elections are no longer the main metric of democracy. Instead, we look to accountability and the existence of an independent judiciary to measure democratic health. Both are fundamental to the principle of rule of law, which Jack Smith emphasized in his speech, identifying it as

“a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice. And our nation’s commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. Applying those laws, collecting facts, that’s what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more, and nothing less.”

We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. This bears repeating because authoritarianism is about getting away with crime. When the judiciary has been neutralized, the press threatened into silence, and security services made into tools of the autocrat, then the leader becomes untouchable, no matter how many crimes he commits.

This indictment interrupts that trajectory. I know where that road leads, and how much we stand to lose. This is why Jack Smith’s speech moved me.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom, Justice, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: The Indictment of Trump

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2023 //
45

I thought I would ignore the story you have read about in every publication: the unprecedented indictment of a former President of the United States. Special Counsel Jack Smith released the indictment yesterday, and I read every word. It is a dramatic narrative of a man who was determined to hold onto state secrets, storing them in public spaces, hiding them when necessary, completely indifferent to the law governing classified documents. The irony, as the indictment points out, is that Trump repeatedly lambasted Hillary Clinton in 2016 for being careless with state secrets and promised to enforce the law if elected.

If you haven’t read the indictment, please do so. At the least, it may make you wonder how Republicans can bring themselves, even now, to echo Trump’s claims that he is the victim of a witch-hunt.

Heather Cox Richardson summarizes the events of the past 24 hours and the underlying issues: can a former President be forgiven for taking home highly classified documents and refusing to give them back when asked? For not only refusing to return them but hiding them from those authorized to collect them? What were his motives? Just to show them off to prove what a big man he is? Or to sell them to foreign agents? Vanity or greed?

And my question: Why are Republicans stridently defending a man who knowingly put the lives of our military at risk and endangered our national security? Have they no shame? Why do they put their loyalty to Trump (or fear of him) above the nation’s security and their oath of office?

She writes:

At 3:00 today, Washington D.C., time, Special Counsel Jack Smith delivered a statement about the recently unsealed indictment charging former president Donald J. Trump on 37 counts of violating national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.


Although MAGA Republicans have tried to paint the indictment as a political move by the Biden administration over a piddling error, Smith immediately reminded people that “[t]his indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.”


The indictment is, indeed, jaw dropping.
It alleges that during his time in the White House, Trump stored in cardboard boxes “information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.” The indictment notes that “[t]he unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”


Nonetheless, when Trump ceased to be president after noon on January 20, 2021, he took those boxes, “many of which contained classified documents,” to Mar-a-Lago, where he was living. He “was not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents.” The indictment makes it clear that this was no oversight: Trump was personally involved in packing the boxes and, later, in going through them and in overseeing how they were handled. The employees who worked for him exchanged text messages referring to his personal instructions about them.


Mar-a-Lago was not an authorized location for such documents, but he stored them there anyway, “including in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room.” They were stacked in public places, where anyone—including the many foreign nationals who visited Mar-a-Lago—could see them. On December 7, 2021, Trump’s personal aide Waltine Nauta took two pictures of several of the boxes fallen on the floor, with their contents, including a secret document available only to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance of the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, spilled onto the floor.


The indictment alleges that Trump showed classified documents to others without security clearances on two occasions, both of which are well documented. One of those occasions was recorded. Trump told the people there that the plan he was showing them was “highly confidential” and “secret.” He added, “See, as president I could have declassified it….Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”


This recording undermines his insistence that he believed he could automatically declassify documents; it proves he understood he could not. In addition, the indictment lists Trump’s many statements from 2016 about the importance of protecting classified information, all delivered as attacks on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whom he accused of mishandling such information. “In my administration,” he said on August 18, 2016, “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”


The indictment goes on: When the FBI tried to recover the documents, Trump started what Washington Post journalist Jennifer Rubin called a “giant shell game”: he tried to get his lawyer to lie to the FBI and the grand jury, saying Trump did not have more documents; worked with Nauta to move some of the boxes to hide them from Trump’s lawyer, the FBI and the grand jury; tried to get his lawyer to hide or destroy documents; and got another lawyer to certify that all the documents had been produced when he knew they hadn’t.


Nauta lied to the grand jury about his knowledge of what Trump did with the boxes. Both he and Trump have been indicted on multiple counts of obstruction and of engaging in a conspiracy to hide the documents.


Eventually, Trump had many of the boxes moved to his property at Bedminster, New Jersey, where on two occasions he showed documents to people without security clearances. He showed a classified map of a country that is part of an ongoing military operation to a representative of his political action committee.


Trump has been indicted on 31 counts of having “unauthorized possession of, access to, and control over documents relating to the national defense,” for keeping them, and for refusing “to deliver them to the officer and employee of the United States entitled to receive them”: language straight out of the Espionage Act. Twenty-one of the documents were marked top secret, nine were marked secret, and one was unmarked.


These documents are not all those recovered—some likely are too sensitive to risk making public—but they nonetheless hold some of the nation’s deepest secrets: “military capabilities of a foreign country and the United States,” “military activities and planning of foreign countries,” “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” “military attacks by a foreign country,” “military contingency planning of the United States,” “military options of a foreign country and potential effects on United States interest,” “foreign country support of terrorist acts against United States interests,” “nuclear weaponry of the United States,” “military activity in a foreign country.”


Smith put it starkly in his statement, “The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk.”


On Twitter, Bill Kristol said it more clearly: “These were highly classified documents dealing with military intelligence and plans. What did Trump do with them? Who now has copies of them?” Retired FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi noted that there is a substantial risk that “foreign intelligence services might have sought or gained access to the documents.”


There is also substantial risk that other countries will be reluctant to share intelligence with the United States in the future. At the very least, it is an unfortunate coincidence that the Central Intelligence Agency in October 2021 reported an unusually high rate of capture or death for foreign informants recruited to spy for the United States.


Since Trump supporters have taken the position that Trump’s indictment over the stolen documents is the attempt of the Biden administration to undermine Trump’s presidential candidacy, it is worth remembering that Trump’s early announcement of his campaign was widely suspected to be an attempt to enable him to avoid legal accountability. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith precisely to put arms length between the administration and the investigations into Trump.
Smith noted today, “Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice. And our nation’s commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. Applying those laws. Collecting facts. That’s what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“The prosecutors in my office are among the most talented and experienced in the Department of Justice. They have investigated this case hewing to the highest ethical standards. And they will continue to do so as this case proceeds.”


Smith added: “It’s very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial in this matter. Consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida.”


Likely responding to MAGA attacks on the FBI and the rule of law, Smith thanked the “dedicated public servants of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with whom my office is conducting this investigation and who worked tirelessly every day upholding the rule of law in our country,” before closing his brief statement.


The indictment revealed just how much detailed information Smith’s team has uncovered, presenting a shockingly thorough case to prove the allegations. Trump’s lawyers will have their work cut out for them…although the team has shifted since this morning: two of Trump’s lawyers quit today. The thoroughness of the indictment also suggests that Trump and his allies might have reason to be nervous about Smith’s other investigation: the one into the attempt to overturn results of the 2020 election.


Some of Trump’s supporters are calling for violence. After Louisiana representative Clay Higgins appeared to be egging on militias to oppose Trump’s Tuesday arraignment, Democratic senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) issued a joint statement calling for “supporters and critics alike to let the case proceed peacefully in court.” Legal scholar Joyce White Vance noted that it was “extremely sad for our country that this isn’t a bipartisan statement being made by leaders from both parties.”
—
Notes:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/special-counsel-jack-smith-delivers-statement
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09/politics/walt-nauta-trump-indicted/index.html

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.3.0_2.pdf
https://www.nola.com/news/politics/clay-higgins-urges-war-over-trump-indictments-author-says/article_db78acde-0701-11ee-af01-73c2414fd4d7.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/09/us/politics/trump-indictment-lawyers-trusty-rowley.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/us/politics/cia-informants-killed-captured.html
https://www.cornellpolicyreview.com/the-executive-records-recovered-from-mar-a-lago-and-the-c-i-a-s-missing-informants/
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793
Twitter links:
BillKristol/status/1667332834514616320
JRubinBlogger/status/1667287186616754177
JoyceWhiteVance/status/1667277258183065601
petestrzok/status/1667276941043351555
djrothkopf/status/1667237607388880922
petestrzok/status/1667276952439324674?s=20

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Failure, Hypocrisy, Justice, Lies, Trump

Oklahoma: Faith Leader Speaks Out Against Tax $$ for Religious Charter School

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2023 //
16

Mitch Randal, a pastor in Norman, Oklahoma, and CEO OF Good Faith Media, published his opposition to the state’s recent decision to fund a religious virtual charter school.

Randal wrote:

The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 to approve using state funds to support a new Catholic school this week. One of the board members voting “yes” was installed to their post last Friday, according to Tulsa World.

The board’s actions began creating the first religious charter school supported by taxpayer dollars in the United States. The online school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, will be managed and operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

Oklahoma’s previous Attorney General, John O’Connor, issued a non-binding 15-page opinion in December 2022 suggesting that Oklahoma’s restriction of taxpayer funds from being used for religious schools would most likely be found unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.

Education Week reported, “O’Connor had concluded that recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions authorizing the inclusion of religious schools in choice programs such as tax credits for scholarship donations, and tuition assistance meant that the high court would likely not ‘accept the argument that, because charter schools are considered public for various purposes, that a state should be allowed to discriminate against religiously affiliated private participants who wish to establish and operate charter schools.’”

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School’s application asked for $2.5 million to serve a potential 500 students in the first year. That will be $2.5 million taken away from public schools to support private religious education.

O’Connor’s successor, Gentner Drummond, withdrew the opinion earlier this year, stating, “Religious liberty is one of our most fundamental freedoms.”

Drummond continued: “It allows us to worship according to our faith, and to be free from any duty that may conflict with our faith. The opinion as issued by my predecessor misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion.”

While some Christian conservatives, such as Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Ryan Walters, praised the board’s decision, other politicians and faith leaders criticized its actions, characterizing them as unconstitutional and a direct violation of the Establishment Clause.

After the 3-2 vote in favor of funding St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, Drummond reiterated his opinion that this decision was improper. “The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” he said.

“It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars,” Drummond said. “In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the State to potential legal action that could be costly.”

Clark Frailey, executive director for Pastors for Oklahoma Kids, commented: “By authorizing a public school that is explicitly affiliated with a particular religion, Oklahoma is endorsing that religion and entangling the government in religious affairs.”

“In addition,” Frailey continued, “the proposed school is to be funded by taxpayer dollars. This clearly misuses public dollars, as it would fund religious indoctrination of children.”

Historically, Oklahoma has been notoriously guilty of using taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate children with religious doctrines. Many times, Good Faith Media has called attention to the misguided and violent actions occurring at Chilocco Indian Agricultural Boarding School.

Thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their families and provided “Christian” education using taxpayer funding. Hiding behind a compassionate mission to educate Indigenous children, the actual objective was to assimilate them into white Protestant doctrines.

While no one suggests the Oklahoma Catholic Diocese is following this model, the dangers of using taxpayer dollars are ominous. Besides taking precious funding away from public education to fund private religious charters, using taxpayer money violates the religious liberty of others not wanting to support religious teachings.

Should taxpayers be forced to support religious teachings contradictory to their belief systems? Will there be any oversight of the use of taxpayer money used at religious schools?

Like public schools, do religious schools have to accept all students or can they discriminate? Will religious schools need curriculum to be approved? If so, who decides? Can any religious sect apply for funding?

Americans United for Separation of Church and State responded, “It’s hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families than the state establishing the nation’s first religious public charter school.”

AU went on to point out the unconstitutionality of the action: “State and federal law are clear: Charter schools are public schools that must be secular and open to all students. No public-school family should fear that their child will be required by charter schools to take theology classes or be expelled for failing to conform to religious doctrines. And the government should never force anyone to fund religious education.”

“Funding private religious schools with public dollars violates core legal principles protecting religious freedom for all,” said Amanda Tyler, executive director of BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty).

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, CEO of Interfaith Alliance, told The Independent that this would “open the floodgates for taxpayer-funded discrimination.” He added: “Taxpayer money should never be used to fund religious instruction, and it is now up to the state to at least ensure St. Isidore abides by the federal nondiscrimination protections guaranteed in public schools.”

The decision by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board is clearly a disregard for the democratic principles established by the nation’s founders.

Thomas Jefferson’s words in his letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut, are as crucial today as they were in 1802: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Mitch Randall headshot

Mitch Randall

CEO of Good Faith Media.

goodfaithmedia.org

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Education Industry, Ethics, Funding, Oklahoma, Privatization, Religion, Republicans, Separation of church and state, Shame

Florida: Insurance Costs Soar While Politicians Fight WOKE

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2023 //
46

The Miami Herald editorial board wonders why the state’s leaders devote all their time fighting WOKE but ignoring the dramatic rise in insurance rates.

Ron DeSantis and the Republicans in the legislature have spent an entire session battling drag queens, gays, trans kids, public schools, Black history, librarians, and academic freedom. They have given each other high fives, but homeowners will get hikes in their insurance, which was not on the political agenda.

We know all too well that Florida property insurance costs have been skyrocketing, with no end in sight. Now there’s a new study that shows just how bad it’s gotten, and it’s even worse than we thought.

According to the data analysis company LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the state’s property insurance costs are up by an incredible 57% since 2015 — nearly triple the national average of 21%, as the Miami Herald reported.

If that weren’t enough misery, Florida distinguished itself in another way: Insurance costs have been rising faster in Florida than in any other state.

Given all of that, you might expect to see the governor and Legislature running around as though their hair was on fire, trying to come up with fixes for our crippled insurance market before regular, non-rich Floridians are forced out and lawmakers get blamed for destroying the middle class.

Lawmakers distracted

But that’s the kind of logic that worked in saner times. In 2023, Florida’s leaders are so busy trying to get Gov. Ron DeSantis into the White House — with a legislative session tailored to his agenda, no matter the cost — that they can’t be bothered to spend much time on insurance, even though it’s a complicated and important issue that affects regular people.

No, in Florida, the long-running and worsening property insurance crisis has been buried under an avalanche of anti-woke measures, the ones DeSantis seems to think will carry him to Washington.

That’s a dangerous strategy. As the Florida governor hits the campaign trail in places like Iowa, he leaves himself vulnerable to charges that he’s not taking care of business at home.

For example, on Wednesday, the governor was set to visit the U.S. southern border. It’s a clear attempt to generate more headlines on immigration, following another taxpayer-financed stunt in which Florida flew migrants from Texas to California. Meanwhile, Floridians back home will be facing record hikes in flood insurance — an average hike of 131%. Where’s the governor’s outrage on that?…

The state is facing a property insurance crisis. Where are our leaders?

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Corruption, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, Failure, Florida

NPE Releases New Report about Christian Nationalist Charter Schools, Funded with Taxes

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2023 //
16

The Network for Public Education released a new report today that should concern everyone who cares about public schools and the use of public resources. The report shows that a growing segment of the charter industry is controlled by Christian nationalists, who indoctrinate their students, using taxpayer dollars.

Contact: Carol Burris

cburris@networkforpubliceducation.org

(646) 678-4477

NEW REPORT DOCUMENTS HOW FAR-RIGHT CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE FUELING THE CULTURE WARS

Right-wing Republicans involved in the creation and governance of charter schools

American taxpayers across the country are funding the recent explosion of growth in far-right, Christian nationalist charter schools, including those affiliated with Hillsdale College, according to a new report, A Sharp Right Turn: A New Breed of Charter Schools Delivers the Conservative Agenda, released by the Network for Public Education (NPE) today.

NPE identified hundreds of charter schools, predominantly in red states, that use the classical brand or other conservative clues in marketing to attract white Christian families. From featured religious music videos to statements that claim they offer a faith-friendly environment, these charter schools are opening at an accelerated rate, with at least 66 schools in the pipeline to open by 2024. While some of these schools, such as the Roger Bacon Academies, are long-standing, nearly half of the schools we identified opened after the inauguration of Donald Trump–representing a 90% increase.

The report exposes how right-wing Republican politicians, including Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida and failed Colorado gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl, have embroiled themselves in creating and governing these schools, with some benefiting financially. In fact, NPE found that right-wing charters are nearly twice as likely to be run by for-profit management companies than the entire charter sector.

According to NPE Executive Director Carol Burris, who co-authored the report with journalist Karen Francisco, “Sectarian extremists and the radical right are capitalizing on tragically loose controls and oversight in the charter school sector to create schools that seek to turn back the clock on civil rights and education progress. These schools teach their own brand of CRT–Christian Right Theory–capitalizing on and fueling the culture wars. As a taxpayer, I am appalled that my tax dollars are seeding such schools.”

Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Programs (CSP) has funneled more than one hundred million dollars to begin or expand right-wing charter schools.

NPE President and education historian Diane Ravitch commented, “Few doubt that the religious right has decided to stake its claim on the next generation of hearts and minds with its unrelenting push for vouchers and book and curricular bans. This report exposes the lesser-known third part of the strategy—the proliferation of right-wing charter schools. It should be a wake-up call to those with progressive ideals who have embraced charter schools. A movement you support is now taking a sharp turn right to destroy the values you cherish.”

To learn more about the rapid growth of right-wing charter schools and their connections with right-wing politicians and the religious right, you can read the full report here.

The Network for Public Education is a national advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, promote, improve, and strengthen public schools for current and future generations of students.

###

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Dark Money, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, Extremism, For-Profit, Freedom, Freedom to Read, Funding, Gender, Lies, Politics, Privatization, Propaganda, Religion, Separation of church and state, U.S. Department of Education

Harold Meyerson: Two Nations, Red and Blue

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2023 //
21

Harold Meyerson of The American Prospect writes here about the sharp divergence between red states and blue states. Their elected officials have very different ideas about how to build their state and serve the needs of the public. There is one issue that he overlooked: vouchers. Red states are busy handing out tax dollars to families whose children are already enrolled in private and religious schools and tearing down the wall of separation between church and state.

Which side are you on?

He writes:

Two Prospect pieces on red and blue trifecta states make clear we really are two separate nations.

If there’s anyone who’s still mystified about why congressional Democrats and Republicans can’t come to an agreement on anything so basic as honoring the debts they’ve incurred, may I gently suggest they take a look at what Democrats and Republicans are doing in the particular states they each completely control.

Yesterday, we posted a piece by my colleague Ryan Cooper on how Minnesota, where Democrats now control both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office, has just enacted its own (to be sure, scaled-back) version of Scandinavian social democracy—including paid sick leave for all, paid family leave, a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, sector-wide collective bargaining in key industries, and the outlawing of “captive audience” meetings, in which management compels employees to attend anti-union rants. A new law also strengthens women’s right to an abortion. Similar laws have been enacted or are under consideration in other Democratic “trifecta” states, though none quite so pro-worker as some of Minnesota’s.

Also yesterday, we posted one of my pieces, this one on everything that Texas’s Republican legislature and governor are enacting to strip power from their large cities, almost all of which are solidly Democratic. One new bill says the state can declare elections to be invalid and compel new ones to be held under state supervision in the state’s largest county, Harris County, which is home to reliably Democratic Houston. And the state Senate has also passed a bill that would strip from cities the ability to pass any regulations on wages, workplace safety, business and financial practices, the environment, and the extent of property rights that exceed the standards set by the state. Which leaves cities with the power to do essentially nothing. No other Republican trifecta states have gone quite as far as Texas, but Tennessee’s legislature did effectively abolish Nashville’s congressional district and expel its assemblymember; Alabama’s legislature revoked Birmingham’s minimum-wage law; and Florida’s governor suspended Tampa’s elected DA because he wouldn’t prosecute women and doctors for violating the state’s new anti-abortion statutes. Beyond their war on cities, Republican trifecta states have long refused to expand Medicaid coverage, have recently also begun to re-legalize child labor and legislate prison terms for librarians whose shelves hold banned books, and in the wake of the Dobbsdecision, criminalized abortions.

Just as cosmic inflation propels the stars away from each other with ever-expanding speed, so Democratic and Republican states are also moving away from each other at an accelerating pace—the Democrats toward a more humane future; the Republicans borne back ceaselessly into a nightmare version of the past. Any dispassionate view of America today has to conclude that the differences between these two Americas are almost as large and intractable as those that split the nation in 1860 and ’61. (The South’s opposition to fairly paid and nondiscriminatory labor was the central issue then and remains a central issue now.)

That said, when confronted with the choice between those two Americas, voters in those red states have frequently backed the blue-state versions of economic rights and personal freedoms, as is clear from their many initiative and referendum votes to raise the minimum wage, expand Medicaid, and preserve the right to an abortion. Likewise, the polling on unions shows their national favorability rating now exceeds 70 percent of the public, including roughly half of self-declared Republicans. Only by their relentless demagoguery on culture-war issues and immigration, their adept gerrymandering, and the disproportionate power that the composition of the Senate vests in barely inhabited states can the Republicans enforce their biases against a rising public tide—but enforce them they do wherever they have the power.

All right, as John Dos Passos wrote in his USA Trilogy, we are two nations—and becoming more so with each passing day.

Postscript: In his Washington Post column…, Perry Bacon noted that while a number of news publications have gone under recently, a few, in his words, “are reimagining political journalism in smart ways.” He cited seven such publications, and his list was headed by—ahem—The American Prospect.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Democrats, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Funding, Health, Houston, Unions, Vouchers

The Lever: Who Is Putting Up Dark Money to Eliminate Abortion Rights?

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2023 //
13

The Lever is a site created by investigative journalist David Sirota. Sirota was a speech writer for Senator Bernie Sanders and co-writer of the award-winning film “Don’t Look Up.” In this post, he reveals the Dark Money behind state-level efforts to get rid of abortion rights. Based on what happened in Kansas, anti-abortion forces will try to block referenda in the future; letting voters decide defeats their cause, just as it does with vouchers, which never win state referenda. In Kansas, their deceptive tactic was to confuse voters about whether to vote yes or no. Most women do not want to abandon a right they had for almost fifty years.

The dark money network led by conservative Supreme Court architect Leonard Leo financed the nonprofit that bankrolled a misleading text message campaign pretending a Kansas ballot measure would “give women a choice,” when it actually would have eliminated state abortion protections.

New tax documents hint at how Leo’s network has been quietly working to influence abortion policy in the states utilizing his historic $1.6 billion dark money fund, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade and ending federal protections for abortion rights. As President Donald Trump’s judicial adviser, Leo helped select three of the six justices making up the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority.

Leo’s network donated $1.7 million to CatholicVote Civic Action, a conservative Catholic advocacy group, between July 2021 and June 2022, according to a new tax return obtained by The Lever.

The contribution was made around the time that CatholicVote Civic Action was funding a campaign supporting a Kansas ballot measure designed to eliminate protections for abortion rights in the state constitution. The ballot measure would have affirmed “there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion” and given state lawmakers “the right to pass laws to regulate abortion.”

Do Right PAC, a political action committee funded by CatholicVote Civic Action, sent text messages to Kansas voters a day before the election last summer giving the false impression that a “yes” vote on the ballot measure would “give women a choice” and “protect women’s health,” when its passage would have ended state protections for abortion rights.

The PAC also paid for TV ads featuring Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, in which he claimed that the amendment would “let Kansas decide what we do on abortion, not judges and not D.C. politicians.”

A spokesperson for Leo did not respond to questions from The Lever.

Former Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), a senior political advisor to CatholicVote Civic Action, led Do Right PAC. CatholicVote Civic Action donated $500,000 of the $556,000 raised by the PAC last year.

Huelskamp did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite these efforts, the Kansas initiative failed decisively, 41 to 59 percent — offering an early preview of how anti-abortion efforts would flounder in the 2022 state elections. While Kansas Republicans recently overrodeDemocratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes of some anti-abortion measures, abortion remains legal in the state up to 22 weeks.

The Leo network’s donation to CatholicVote Civic Action came via the Concord Fund, the conservative advocacy group that spent tens of millions to confirm the three Supreme Court nominees whom Leo helped select as former Trump’s judicial adviser.

Tax records show the Concord Fund raised $29 million between July 2021 and June 2022. All of that money appears to have come from Leo’s Marble Freedom Trust. As The Lever and ProPublica reported last year, this trust was the recipient of an unprecedented $1.6 billion cash infusion courtesy of Chicago surge protector magnate Barre Seid.

The new tax documents show how Leo is using the Concord Fund to imprint his conservative vision on both politics and policy.

The disclosure shows the Concord Fund donated $3 million to One Nation, the Senate GOP’s dark money arm. One Nation, which supports Republican Senate candidates, aired ads supporting Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation in 2018.

The Concord Fund separately donated nearly $1 million to the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group that pressed the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. The organization has actively backed voter suppression laws passed by Republican lawmakers around the country.

Records show the Concord Fund also donated $500,000 to Advancing American Freedom, a dark money group chaired by former Vice President Mike Pence that is serving as his “campaign-in-waiting” in advance of a potential 2024 presidential bid, according to Politico.

In 2021, Advancing American Freedom filed an amicus brief, or friend-of-the-court filing, pressing the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade — warning that “unfettered access to abortion” has led to “declining formation of families with accompanying increases in family instability and single parent households (many living in poverty).”

This year, the organization filed a brief unsuccessfully urging the high court to approve a Texas district court ruling designed to ban a commonly-used abortion pill. The Supreme Court blocked the lower court’s decision in April, allowing an appeals court to consider the case first, though it’s widely expected that the case will eventually end up back at the high court.

The Concord Fund has long been the chief financier of the Republican Attorneys General Association, which elects GOP attorneys general, and donated $6.5 million to the group last election cycle, according to data compiled by CQ Roll Call’s Political Moneyline.

Those attorneys general regularly bring cases and file briefs urging the Supreme Court to issue precedent-shattering decisions. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, for instance, led the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case at the Supreme Court, by which justices overturned federal protections for abortion rights.

The Concord Fund additionally reported donating $750,000 to the lobbying arm of the Foundation for Government Accountability, which has led the fight to institute new and expanded work requirements for a range of social safety net programs.

President Joe Biden’s recent debt ceiling deal with House Republicans includes some of those expanded work requirements, at the urging of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Fraud, Gender, Kansas

Tom Ultican: ETS and Carnegie Combine to Push an EdTech Zombie on Kids

By dianeravitch
June 5, 2023 //
71

Tom Ultican worked in technology before he became a teacher of advanced mathematics and physics in a California high school. He is now retired. Like many other people, he thought that the social isolation of the pandemic and the mental health problems it generated among young people would have dimmed the allure of EdTech.

But the Educational Testing Service and the Carnegie Corporation have latched onto EdTech as the future of education. And Ultican says they are promoting a zombie idea, that is, a policy that has failed and failed yet never dies.

He writes:

Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Carnegie Foundation are partnering to create assessments for competency-based education, claiming it will revive the zombie education policy tainted by a five decade record of failure. The joint announcement was made at the April 2023 ASU+GSV conference in San Diego with Bill Gates as the keynote speaker. Ultimately, it was to make the Orwellian-named “personalized learning”viable for issuing digitally earned certifications.

ASU is Arizona State University and GSV is the private equity firm, Gold Standard Ventures. GSV advertises “The sector’s preeminent collection of talent & experience—uniquely qualified to partner with, and to elevate, EdTech’s most important companies.” It profits from the corporate education ideology that holds job training as the purpose of public education….

The 1970’s “mastery learning” was detested and renamed “outcome based education” in the 1990s. It is now called “competency based education” (CBE). The name changes were due to a five-decade long record of failure. CBE is a move to use “mastery learning” techniques to create individualized certification paths. However it is still the same mind-numbing approach that the 1970s teachers began calling “seats and sheets….”

Unfortunately the potential for large profits is huge and serially failed education policies are zombies that will not die….

Renewed neoliberal effort to revive CBE now has new players seeking to be big contributors while old hands are filling leadership roles. For example, at the best-known new group called Mastery Transcript Consortium, board member, Tom Vander Ark, the former education director at the Gates Foundation 1999-2006 remains engaged in pushing edtech.

There is very little real change. CBE continues to put kids at computers learning scripted chunks of information and testing for mastery, promising to increase edtech profits and reduce education costs especially teacher salaries. It is awful education and the children hate it.

Just because “children hate it” is not a good reason to axe a zombie idea.

Ultican writes that machine learning can never be authentic education. Students want to interact with teachers and other students.

To me, the biggest problem is that “mastery learning” is proven lousy pedagogy that is unaligned with how learning happens.

In his book Soka Education, Daisaku Ikeda writes,

“Recognizing each student as a unique personality and transmitting something through contacts between that personality and the personality of the instructor is more than a way of implanting knowledge: it is the essence of education.”

Socrates likened this education process to being“kindled by a leaping spark” between teacher and student. CBE, “mastery learning,” “outcome based education” or whatever name is given to teaching students in isolation is bad pedagogy, bordering on child abuse.

Open the link and keep reading for the latest venture into the bold old world of EdTech.

Categories Corporate Reform, Curriculum, Education Industry, Ethics, Failure, For-Profit, Technology

Nancy Bailey: Third Grade Retention Is a Terrible Idea

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2023 //
19

Yesterday I reviewed Nicholas Kristof’s enthusiastic endorsement of Mississippi’s reading program, which has raised test scores in fourth grade without reducing class size, spending more on education, or reducing child poverty. Kristof seems to believe that the so-called “science of reading,” allied with third grade retention and pre-school is the no-cost silver bullet to change American education. It should certainly appeal to those who don’t want to raise taxes or reduce economic inequality. The one study cited by Kristof in support of third grade retention was funded by Jeb Bush’s foundation; Florida enacted third grade retention and saw its fourth grade scores rise (but not scores in eighth grade).

Kristoff quoted a study that reached favorable conclusions about the efficacy of third-grade retention. He said that 9% of third-graders in Mississippi had been held back. I said that might be sufficient to explain the impressive fourth grade scores on NAEP: eliminate the lowest-scoring kids and scores go up.

Nancy Bailey, retired teacher, summarizes some of the research on third-grade retention: it’s bad.

She writes:

How can anyone who claims the Science of Reading is real think it’s OK to retain a third-grade child based on one test or for any reason?

If ever evidence or science existed involving education, understanding the rottenness of retention would be it. Yet some of the same people who believe using phonics (and more) is the one-size-fits-all scientific reading miracle seem fine with retention.

This is a crack in the glass for SoR science because it makes it look political. Retaining third graders because of a test may drive parents to leave public schools.

Children are devastated by retention. Once a child is retained, it changes their world. In Student Ratings of Stressful Experiences at Home and School, Anderson, Jimerson, and Whipple (2008) found that it rated high with various stressors.

Across grade levels, those events rated as most stressful by children were: losing a parent, academic retention, going blind, getting caught in theft, wetting in class, a poor report card, having an operation, parental fighting, and being sent to the principal.

When a child is kept back, they are more likely to be more physically developed in middle school than their peers. This certainly causes a child to rethink school and want to drop out.

In 2001, that’s right, 2001, Shane R. Jimerson’s Meta-analysis of Grade Retention Research: Implications for Practice in the 21st Century summarized studies of a previously published literature review about retention between 1990 and 1999, comparing this research with studies about retention done in the 1970s and 1980s.

Jimerson concludes:

In isolation, neither social promotion nor grade retention will solve our nation’s educational ills nor facilitate the academic success of children. Instead attention must be directed toward alternative remedial strategies. Researchers, educators, administrators, and legislators should commit to implement and investigate specific remedial intervention strategies designed to facilitate socioemotional adjustment and educational achievement of our nation’s youth.

Some SoR enthusiasts say if children had been given evidence-based instruction with phonics, no child would need to be retained. But even if this were true, why would they be on board for retention today when science is more confident of the problems with retention, especially third-grade retention based on one test, than the SoR?

It’s hard to believe Floridians ever permitted retention, since its researchers identified its harmfulness years ago. Many students have been retained in third grade throughout the years.

It’s perplexing to see legislators in other states endorsing it, like it’s a good thing, when the research about it is clear. It’s good that Michigan will no longer do it, but many other states continue to practice grade retention.

Furman professor Paul Thomas, who has written extensively about the SoR, describes retention here and presents a map showing the states currently subscribing to holding third graders back.

The same promoters of the SoR seem to love retention and are trying to connect it to Mississippi, where they appear to have higher test results in fourth grade.

The promoters of third-grade retention seem connected to former Governor Jeb Bush, who, for some strange reason, hitched his education star to third-grade retention based on a test. How sad that he didn’t promote lowering class sizes in K-3rd grade instead.

Categories Cruelty, Education Industry, Ethics, Failure, Florida, Literacy, Mississippi, NAEP
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