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David Dayen: Why A Federal Bail Out for Lobbyists?

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2020 //
20

David Dayen writes regular reports on the politics of the pandemic for The American Prospect.

He posted this today.


First Response

I read this interview between Ezra Klein and Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Pramila Jayapal, and I have to say I’m tiring of what amounts to a bunch of excuses for how progressives have been functionally locked out of policymaking during this crisis. Jayapal sniffs that “it’s a lot easier to be on the outside and to be pure and never having to make compromises,” and says that there aren’t enough progressives willing to use their power to stop legislation outright. She essentially says that, as long as there’s a bone in there, members can be easily picked off.

But the problem isn’t about compromise, it’s about invisibility. Nancy Pelosi has run the House of Representatives by fiat for close to two months, and there hasn’t been a single word of protest as she locks every other member of the Democratic caucus out of policymaking and hands them take-it-or-leave-it legislation to rubber stamp. If Jayapal has ever objected to that you sure wouldn’t know.

As Ezra points out, instead of organizing around one thing, progressives supply 100-item wish lists that everyone knows won’t be fulfilled. This has two consequences: the wish lists show progressives are not completely serious about governing, and the leadership can always pick like 2 of the 100 out of the list and give members something to justify voting for a bad bill.

Read all of our Unsanitized reports

Meanwhile, Pelosi has been talking about what she’ll add to the next bill, and it’s relatively unconstrained by wish lists. One of the elements is changing the eligibility standards for PPP small business loans to include 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) nonprofit organizations. You might know (c)(6) organizations by another name: lobbyists. Unbelievably, K Street has asked for a bailout and is on the road to getting it. I mean lobbyists are good at lobbying, I guess.

As far as I can tell, lobbyists have not stopped lobbying amid the crisis. There’s been a “frenzy” of lobbying around Mitch McConnell’s desire for a corporate liability shield from coronavirus-related lawsuits, for example. Why do high-powered lobby shops need a free $10 million per firm, exactly? Also, PPP will be out of money by the time any bill passes. Does tweaking eligibility signal giving more to this program, in part to just shovel money at lobbying firms?

Meanwhile, Jayapal’s bill to guarantee payroll support from the government for the duration of the crisis was “very worthy of consideration,” said Pelosi. That’s code for “nice work but it’s not getting in the bill.”

The House Democratic slogan is “for the people.” And that’s selectively true. Pelosi listens to some people, powerful people. And she pays lip service to others. She does this because she knows she can get away with it. There’s been essentially no dissent from those on the losing end of that equation. The House still doesn’t even have remote voting in place, and caucuses are doing Zoom calls rather than official hearings. Hundreds of members of Congress representing hundreds of millions of people have been disenfranchised. If there’s state and local government aid in a future bill (if it ever happens), progressives are going to shrug and support something with a lobbyist bailout in it. You can see it now.

If you funnel all lawmaking through one person, you’re going to get things laundered through a certain perspective that has a likelihood of occasionally being myopic. The K Street bailout is the dumbest political maneuver you could possibly make right now. Businesses already have access to insanely generous support at the federal level; the Federal Reserve has propped up their equity and credit markets. Who do you think pays lobbyists? The PPP is an underweighted program that isn’t going to save most small businesses, it’s not even designed to do that. All you’re doing by adding lobbyists to it is stoking public anger. And the anger is well-placed; lobbyists really don’t deserve free money right now.

But when there’s no pressure whatsoever on the one-woman Congress, you stumble into mistakes like this. Surely progressive lawmakers don’t like being alienated from their professional duties in this fashion. Maybe they should say something.

Jared’s Boys

To facilitate sleeping at night, I try really hard to avoid the unavoidable reality that Jared Kushner, someone with about as much policy talent as the agave plant in my front yard, is managing huge sections of the government. But the description of Kushner’s operation to secure medical equipment reflects the farce that our policymaking apparatus has been turned into, a combination of kleptocracy and total ignorance that is hard to even really analyze outside of saying “this is bad.”

But I will highlight the provenance of many of the people working on the Kushner project: his buddies in the private equity industry. Was the whole idea to, I don’t know, knuckle under suppliers and take out management fees and rip off hospitals and states? Then why would PE guys be involved? They “were expected to apply their deal-making experience to quickly weed out good leads from the mountain of bad ones,” according to administration officials. That’s not what PE, especially the inexperienced PE volunteers assigned to this project, do. There are no distressed assets among medical suppliers in high demand. There’s nobody to screw over when the goal is to get masks and gowns quickly to doctors and nurses. And PE paper-pushers probably don’t understand the particular challenges of this task, namely supply chain management.

This Pro Publica story about one fly-by-night contractors private jet trip to find N95 masks is typical of the dysfunction involved here. And here’s a supply company set up by Republican operatives that’s now under criminal investigation. And here are more allegations that the administration prioritized friends of Kushner for contracts. This entire thing was an enormous grift at the expense of national preparedness.

Categories Accountability, Funding

Education Law Center: States Should Reject DeVos’ Proposal to Fund Elite Private Schools

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2020 //
8

NEW JERSEY MUST REJECT EDUCATION SECRETARY DEVOS’ ADVICE TO GIVE EMERGENCY COVID-19 FUNDS EVEN TO WEALTHY PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Education Law Center is urging New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to firmly reject a non-binding directive from U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to set aside federal emergency relief funds under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act for all private school students, even the most wealthy.

In a May 11 letter to Governor Murphy, ELC explains that Secretary DeVos’ guidance to New Jersey and other states to allocate CARES Act funds to all private school students, without regard for income level, is based on a patent misreading of the express terms of the CARES Act and the federal Title I statute, which governs the distribution of CARES Act funding to local school districts. ELC further explains that Secretary DeVos’ flawed legal interpretation would also significantly diminish the resources available to New Jersey school districts to provide effective and equitable remote learning opportunities while students are sheltering at home to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“This erroneous guidance lays bare Secretary DeVos’ personal agenda for reducing federal emergency CARES Act funds to public schools and redirecting as much of that funding as possible to private schools,” said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director. “By advising that even the wealthiest students in the most expensive private schools should receive services paid for with CARES Act funds, the guidance would lead New Jersey and other states to divert millions of dollars critically needed by public school students, including access to continuing instruction while their schools are closed.”

Estimates based on 2017 census data show that New Jersey’s high poverty districts will be most impacted by following Secretary DeVos’ directive given the differences between the poverty rates of the district as a whole and those of private school students.

For example, in Jersey City, 12% of the district school-aged population attend private schools, while only 14% of those students are poor. Following DeVos’ directive would mean diverting nearly $1 million more of the CARES Act funds from Jersey City public school students, 30% of whom are poor.

Similarly, in Passaic City, an estimated 16% of students attend private schools, but only 10% of those students are poor. In Passaic public schools, 51% of students are poor. Using Secretary DeVos’ preferred approach would increase the amount of federal CARES Act funds reserved for private school students from $300,000 to $1.4 million.

ELC also underscores that rejecting Secretary DeVos’ directive is compelled by New Jersey’s constitutional obligation to “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of free public schools” for all students. As the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed in the landmark Abbott v. Burke rulings, public school students have a fundamental right to an education that prepares them to be informed citizens and productive members of society and that right “must remain prominent, paramount and fully protected.”

Beyond New Jersey, ELC is calling on governors and education officials to decline Secretary DeVos’ legally improper directives and ensure maximum CARES Act funds to enable school districts across the country to bring an end to the digital divide.

Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
Education Law Center
60 Park Place, Suite 300
Newark, NJ 07102
973-624-1815, ext. 24
skrengel@edlawcenter.org

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization

New York Post: Secret Deal Between NYC Mayor De Blasio and Orthodox Jewish Leaders to Stall Report about Investigation of Yeshivas

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2020 //
3

Susan Edelman, investigative reporter on education issues, reports on emails showing that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made a deal with Orthodox Jewish leaders—a powerful voting bloc in the city and state politics—to stall an investigation of shoddy yeshivas in exchange for their support in the state legislature renewing mayoral control of the New York City public schools.

Edelman writes:

Mayor Bill de Blasio was personally involved in a deal with Orthodox Jewish leaders to delay a long-awaited report on shoddy yeshivas in exchange for an extension of mayoral control of city schools, emails obtained by The Post show.

Internal emails among de Blasio and his top aides at City Hall and the Department of Education reveal that the mayor made key phone calls to the powerful religious leaders to clinch the support of two state lawmakers voting on his power to run the nation’s largest school system.

“These internal communications reveal what we suspected all along: Mayor de Blasio abused his power by interfering with the yeshiva investigation,” said Nafuli Moster, founder and executive director of Young Advocates for Fair Education (YAFFED). The group filed complaints against 39 Brooklyn yeshivas in July 2015 for allegedly shortchanging children on secular subjects such as math, English, science and history.

The DOE launched an investigation of the yeshivas, but as it dragged on, critics charged City Hall was delaying the probe to curry favor with the Orthodox Jewish voting bloc.

Even an investigation of the mayor’s suspected interference was stalled, whistle-blowers told The Post. In response to that complaint, the Department of Investigation and the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools finally issued a report last December confirming “political horsetrading” on the mayoral control issue.

YAFFED—an organization of former yeshiva students—has lodged complaints against many yeshivas for failing to prepare students to live in modern society while collecting millions of dollars in city and state funding.

Categories Bill de Blasio, Funding, New York City, Religion

Michigan: District Votes to Turn Alternative School into Virtual School

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2020 //
23

Maybe this won’t seem like a big deal to you, but it’s a portent of the future. It’s not a lot of students or teachers, but it signifies what’s coming down the pike.

A small alternative school in Avondale, Michigan, is going to be converted to a full-time virtual school.

All seven teachers will be replaced.

The district pretends that the decision was for the sake of the students, but in reality, it’s to save money. The district and the state of Michigan just could not afford to educate these students anymore so they settled on a cheap strategy. The kids will get an inferior digital education with no personal interaction with real teachers, but, hey, the state can’t afford to give them a real education.

This week is National Teacher Appreciation Week – but, for the seven teachers at Avondale Academy, they just found out they’re being laid off.

On Monday, the Avondale Board of Education voted to close Avondale Academy and to restructure it as the Avondale Diploma and Careers Institute Virtual School – a fully online alternative high school.

Social studies teacher Paul Sandy said he is horrified by the board’s decision. He created the petition “Save Avondale Academy” and, as of Tuesday evening, it has more than 500 online signatures.

“It’s a central truth that all children deserve real teachers – not virtual teachers who can’t see them, talk to them, hand them fruit snacks out of their big Trader Joe’s bag, buy them art supplies or talk to them out in the hallway between classes,” said Sandy. “All students deserve an education that is hands-on and involves physical activity, social interaction and authentic, real learning…”

As part of the decision, the Diploma and Careers Institute will provide all Avondale Academy students with their own Chromebook, and a resource center would be open Monday through Thursday, staffed with an adult mentor, for students who need in-person support. There would continue to be opportunities for breakfast and lunch, transportation and counseling for the students.

According to Frank Lams, assistant superintendent for Financial Services, this decision will save the district a substantial amount of money.

“The district would pick up 20 percent of the enrollment (from per-pupil state funding) and the net revenue. DCI would pick up the cost for the counselors and mentors, as well as all the hardware and software necessary for the program. So, there’s a shift of about $180,000 positive. This is based on 115 pupil enrollment for the Academy,” said Lams.

The online board meeting attracted nearly 150 attendees – a record number for the board. Teachers, parents, students and experts from Michigan universities and organizations all joined together to argue for the future of the 115 students at Avondale Academy.

Paul Sandy, the social studies teacher at Avondale Academy, wrote this about the school in his petition to save the school:

Avondale Academy is an alternative public high school in the Avondale School District that serves approximately 113 students from Pontiac, Auburn Hills, and Rochester Hills, Michigan. It is intended for students who have either struggled to succeed in a mainstream high school or for students who want a smaller school setting with more social-emotional support and a community style education approach.

Avondale Academy currently provides students with a positive educational experience through social-emotional supports to students, mentor groups that reinforce community norms, creativity through art and music endeavors, a mental health peer-to-peer group, project-based learning, and reading and math intervention. All of those things are made possible with teachers.

The board decided: These kids are expendable.

Categories Accountability, Funding, Michigan, Online Education, Students, Teachers, Technology

Nancy Bailey: How Betsy DeVos Fostered Squalid Learning Conditions in Detroit

By dianeravitch
May 7, 2020 //
8

Nancy Bailey just keeps getting better and better as she points her pen and her blog at malfeasance in education.

In this post, she points to the recent landmark decision that recognized that the children of Detroit have a right to literacy, a right not previously acknowledged by any court (or overturned on appeal). The court quite correctly decided that young people cannot exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens if they can’t read.

What is DeVos’s role in the Detroit debacle? She has spent large sums of money to promote the false idea that the way to improve education is to expand school choice. Detroit is her handiwork, and it proves the failure of school choice. What she purchased was widespread inequity and inadequacy.

Open the link to read the full article and see the links to other sources.

Bailey writes:

The Detroit landmark decision that children deserve to learn to read in school is a case that reflects decades of troubled education in Detroit. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and school privatization are not mentioned in this case. But school privatization initiatives have been failing children in the Motor City for years. DeVos is the current face of a long line of those peddling such reforms.

Harmful school reform initiatives go back to Gov. John Engler’s administration. Many school reformers, both Republican and Democrat, have their fingerprints on the crime scene. The DeVos family is from Michigan and has affected Detroit and school reform there for years.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Detroit students who claim they were denied their rights to a “basic minimum education.” Called the “Right to Read” lawsuit, Gary B. v. Whitmer exposes the decrepit conditions found in schools run by State leaders who failed to support Detroit’s students. The case was originally filed under former Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration.

It’s critical to recognize DeVos’s connection to the Detroit school failures. During this pandemic she is flagrantly redirecting public money to the same privatization agenda. It puts democratic public schools in jeopardy, like schools were put at risk in Detroit. Here’s a petition you can sign now to try and stop her.

School privatization cheerleaders have for years promoted the idea that choice will equalize education by giving parents choices. They’ve pushed for online charter schools and school turnarounds that get tough on teachers and students of color. Choice failed in Detroit.

Reading

Schools had no literacy programs.

The case describes what good reading instruction should consist of in school. Sometimes it appears to be delving into the Reading Wars, emphasizing the loss of explicit phonics.

The trouble is, one can’t get to a debate over how students learn to read, without overcoming the fact that students have untrained teachers and an atrocious learning environment.

It’s troubling to think the case might result in only professional development and a push for unproven programs, even online reading programs, that don’t address the need for creating quality schools, professional teachers, and more individualized attention for the children of Detroit.

School Buildings

Poor school conditions have been a part of Detroit’s schools for years. Students struggle to learn in slum-like conditions, no air-conditioning in the summer, freezing temperatures in the winter. Who can forget these pictures from 2016, the year the case was filed?

Vermin, mold, and contaminated drinking water plague the schools. Bullets, dead vermin, condoms, and sex toys have been found on the playground. Fire safety equipment and fire regulations are missing.

Betsy DeVos’s mantra is that education is about students and not buildings. She has done nothing to improve the condition of schools in Detroit or around the country.

Lacking Resources

Teaching resources were deficient. The case describes classrooms without enough textbooks, and old books that haven’t been updated in years.

The only school library mentioned had no librarian and was locked!

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Detroit, Education Industry, Failure, Funding, Inequity, Injustice, Privatization

Steven Singer: Save Our Schools from the Biggest Budget Cuts in History

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2020 //
5

Steven Singer warns that public schools are facing deep cuts in state funding due to revenue losses caused by the pandemic.

Hey, it’s Teacher Appreciation Week, just the time to start mobilizing against cuts that could cause the layoff of nearly 300,000 teachers.

That means larger class sizes, fewer electives, cuts to the arts, to everything that is not tested.

Don’t expect Trump to stand up for teachers. He said famously in 2016 that he “loves the uneducated.” He wants more of them. They are the ones who march around with their weapons demanding freedom from public health measures to protect lives.

A society that is unwilling to invest in its children is sacrificing its future.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Cruelty, Education Reform, Funding, Ignorance, Students, Teachers

Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren: There’s No Oversight of Coronavirus Relief–Because That’s What Trump Wants

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2020 //
32

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote this opinion piece, which appeared in McClatchy newspapers across the country, including the Miami Herald.

Please open the link and read it in full.

Biden and Warren write:

Relief legislation passed by Congress provides critical support for hospitals, families, small businesses and local governments — efforts that will save lives and help cushion the economic blows of this pandemic.

As the price of their support for these measures, Trump and the Republicans insisted on a $500 billion slush fund for big businesses with minimal conditions — a fund Trump could use to reward his political friends and punish his political enemies. They also jammed in a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires. This tax break will be particularly helpful to hedge funds and real estate investors like the president’s friends and family — on top of the $1 trillion in giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations Trump previously pushed through Congress. The administration has even allowed a fund meant for America’s small businesses to be used by wealthy, well-connected investors. The cost is more than simply tax dollars — Americans’ faith in government is undermined when the price of helping everyone else is more giveaways for those at the top.

The coronavirus rescue package imposed some oversight of these programs, but when he signed it, Trump said he’d ignore the law and prevent a new inspector general from communicating with Congress. He then appointed a White House loyalist to serve in that role. And just to be sure there was no real accountability, he fired another inspector general independently designated to oversee the bailout…

Trump seems to think he can direct funding for the response to this crisis based on which politicians are nice to him, which states he’s trying to win in November and which businesses he wants to enrich — all without any accountability. We have a different view.

Taxpayer relief should go to those most in need. Hospitals, essential workers, small businesses, and state and local governments should get the help they need immediately. If large corporations want help, they should agree not to turn around and fire all their workers. The relief bill’s unconscionable tax giveaway that overwhelmingly benefits millionaires should be repealed. But that is not enough.

They go on to write about barring conflicts of interest, noting that neither of them owns individual stocks as a matter of policy.

They warn about the power of lobbyists and the need for public disclosure of lobbying for special favors by big corporations.

And they call for strict oversight of the massive spending bills, including protection for Inspectors General and whistleblowers.

The corruption built into the coronavirus relief funds is appalling, and it is heartening to see Biden and Warren–both experienced pros on matters of oversight–insisting on transparency and regulation of this vast spending. It gives me hope that we might be able to get our country back, come November 2020.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/article242350451.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Ethics, Funding

John Ewing: We Should Listen to the Real Education Experts: Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2020 //
34

John Ewing, a mathematician and president of Math for America, wrote in Forbes about a conference he recently attended about education. He noticed that none of the experts at the conference were teachers. When he asked the conference leader, his question was dismissed.

He remembered that Mike Rose had done a check of articles in the “New Yorker.” Most of the articles about medicine were written by doctors. None of the articles about education were.

Ewing maintains that teachers should make major policy decisions, not politicians. I say, “Hurray for John Ewing!” (By the way, he wrote one of the best takedown of value-added assessment of teachers published anywhere, in 2011, called “Mathematical Intimidation: Driven by the Data.”)

Ewing writes:

Teachers are the ones who drive reform forward, not policy makers. Should teachers weigh in on issues that affect their students? It seems absurd to even ask such a question. Good teachers know their students best. When we ignore this, we make colossal mistakes, like creating bizarre testing regimes or proposing misaligned curricula.

Education suffers when we don’t value teacher expertise, but the worst consequence is something more lasting: The teaching profession becomes less attractive. The best eventually leave, fewer of the best enter, and over time teacher expertise declines, creating a downward spiral.

Yes, I know, not every teacher is an accomplished expert, just as not every doctor is. But many are, and they are the ones we need most. Instead, they leave. Worse, they tell brilliant young people who think about teaching as a career: “You can do better.” A 2019 PDK survey asked teachers whether they would advise their own children to follow in their footsteps; less than half (45 percent) said they would.

The week of May 4 is Teacher Appreciation Week in the United States. This year, instead of giving teachers a plant or a letter or a video (all suggestions from the internet), why not give them something they can use? Give them respect—the kind that recognizes their expertise. Otherwise, we might all soon be asking … “Where are the teachers?”

Categories Education Reform, Funding, Harlem Success Academy

New York City: Don’t Cut the Budget of Our Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2020 //
3

Parents in New York City are pleading with Mayor DeBlasio NOT to cut the budget of the public schools. Please add your name to their petition to Corey Johnson, Speaker of the City Council.

All –

Please help NYC public school students by signing and circulating this petition directed to Corey Johnson, Speaker of City Council, to stop Mayor DeBlasio’s proposed 827 million dollar budget cut to NYC public schools. The idea that when our kids – and kids across NYC – return to school they will have even fewer resources than they had pre-COVID, at a time when so many need more, is simply wrong. After months of compromised learning and, for many students tremendous loss in their families and communities, children will need additional academic and socio-emotional support – but the proposed budget cuts will guarantee they get less.

There are many competing needs in our city right now. As public school parents and educators who have worked in and with high schools for over 25 years, we can confidently say that if school funding is not prioritized in the upcoming budget, it will be an unmitigated disaster – not only for the next school year, but for the long term. Please read this petition, sign it and circulate it far and wide. For this to make a difference, it needs to reach thousands of people.

Thank you!

xox,
Lori and Ben

Categories Bill de Blasio, Budget Cuts, Funding, New York City

Elite Private Schools Collect Federal Aid, Including Barron Trump’s

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2020 //
48

Barron Trump’s elite private school collected federal coronavirus relief aid, as did several other private schools with multi-million dollar endowments. That includes the private school that Stephen Mnuchin’s children attend in Los Angeles.

The elite Maryland private school attended by Donald Trump’s son Barron is collecting taxpayer stimulus aid — and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is demanding that money to wealthy schools be returned.

The Brentwood School in Los Angeles, attended by Mnuchin’s own children, is also collecting public funds as part of the administration small business stimulus program meant to help mitigate the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Neither school plans to return the money.

Another handout to the super-rich from funds intended to help small businesses.

Categories Funding
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