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Fact-Checking Trump’s Fantastical Memory of Clash with Iran

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2023 //
27

Glenn Kessler is the official Fact-Checker for The Washington Post. He scrupulously reviews the public statements of public officials and rates them according to their accuracy or inaccuracy. He is nonpartisan and judges Presidents of both parties. He awards “Pinocchios.” A small lie gets one Pinocchio. The highest level of lying gets four.

In this post, he reviews Trump’s claims about standing up to Iran.

Kessler begins:

We have a high bar for fact-checking statements by former president Donald Trump — any speech of his can contain dozens of falsehoods — but in a recent hour-long interview with Univision, the former president offered a tale of relations with Iran so startling that it begged to be explored.

In Trump’s telling, when he was president, the United States retaliated after Iran destroyed an American drone, and then when Iran decided to hit back, it purposely missed a military base with U.S. troops. Not only that, Iranian officials called Trump and let their plans be known, apparently out of respect for him.

You can read our full report and find out the Pinocchio rating by clicking this link (but you’ve probably already guessed the rating).

Could this really have happened? Of course not. We reviewed the public record on both incidents. In the first case, Trump canceled a planned strike on Iran after it downed a $150 million drone, to the shock of his aides. In the second case, most of Iran’s missiles struck a base housing U.S. personnel in Iraq. No one was killed, though many soldiers suffered serious brain injuries, but the absence of deaths was more a result of a well-planned evacuation than Iranian targeting. A vague warning without a target had been given to the Iraqi president — but not to Trump.

I clicked the link and this is what he wrote:

“You remember they [Iran] fired. They hit one of our drones and I hit them. …. They called us to tell us that we’re going to hit back. Here’s the target, but we’re not going to hit the target. We’re going to just miss it. It’s a military base.”

— Former president Donald Trump, in an interview with Univision, streamed Nov. 10

In his hour-long interview with Univision, the former president offered a tale of relations with Iran so startling that it begged to be explored. In his telling, the United States retaliated after Iran destroyed an American drone, and then when Iran decided to hit back, it purposely missed a U.S. military base. Not only that, Iranian officials called Trump and let their plans be known, apparently out of respect for him.

“It was quite an evening,” Trump recounted. “And they sent in 18 drones. Five of them self-destructed. The rest of them essentially missed the base. They were outside the base in areas where there weren’t [people]. Nobody was killed — with all of that, you know, being out there. But they called us. They call me and … this is Iran. This is,you know, this is Iran who’s supposed to be so hostile. They respected us. And I respect them.”

Were Trump and Iran’s supreme leader on speed dial with each other? Trump’s account “is complete nonsense,” said former Trump national security adviser John R. Bolton, who vividly recounted the first drone incident in his critical memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”

Little else that Trump said is correct either. As Bolton put it in an interview, “It’s about five or six things mixed together and reported inaccurately.”

The Facts

As we learned during his presidency, Trump is not detailed-oriented and struggles to recount events with precision. He places himself at the center of action, a superhero president whom opponents respect or cower before, and the outcomes are always perfect. Whether he convinces himself the fake stories are true — or whether he deliberately tells falsehoods — is always open to question.

In this case, there was an Iranian attack on a U.S. drone in 2019 — but Trump did not hit back. He lost his nerve at the last minute, according to various news accounts. Then there was an Iranian attack on a U.S. military base in 2020. It involved missiles, not drones. No one was killed, though more than 100 service members suffered from traumatic brain injuries.

Let’s explore each incident in turn.

“They hit one of our drones and I hit them.”

On June 19, 2019, Iran shot down its second U.S. drone, a $150 million RQ-4A Global Hawk, in two weeks. The U.S. military said the drone had been operating in international airspace. Trump’s top national security advisers unanimously recommended that the United States answer back with attacks on three military facilities. According to Bolton’s book, Trump and his aides discussed possible casualties — he was told they would be small given the hour of the planned attack, though it might include Russians — and then Trump briefed congressional leaders about what was coming. He also tweeted: “Iran made a big mistake!”

Then, suddenly, Trump called off the attack with just minutes to go. In the undisciplined Trump White House, a legal adviser had wandered into the Oval Office and told the president that 150 people would be killed. It was not an official estimate but based on a guesstimate that 50 people worked at each base. (According to Bolton, the aide didn’t know the target list had shrunk to two bases.)

“Too many body bags,” Trump told Bolton in a phone call, telling him he had changed his mind, according to Bolton. “Not proportional.” After that, no one could convince Trump to stick to the original plan he had approved, even though he had worried that the attack was not robust enough. He repeatedly said he didn’t want to see a lot of body bags on television.

“In my government experience, this was the most irrational thing I ever witnessed any president do,” wrote Bolton, who also had worked for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Then to compound the internal angst about the turn of events, Trump tweeted about what he had done.

Open the link to see Trump’s tweet.

“On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters,” he wrote. “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not … … proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”

In an interview a few months later with Sean Hannity, Trump suggested that his restraint had generated goodwill with Iran. “We have a lot of goodwill built up,” he said. “They took down a drone, there was nobody in it. They took down a second drone, there was nobody in it. There’s a lot of goodwill.”

But just before that first drone strike, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had made his views about Trump known. Trumphad encouraged Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to meet with Khamenei to try to discover whether Iran was willing to enter new negotiations on the nuclear agreement that President Barack Obama had negotiated and that Trump had terminated. “I don’t consider Trump as a person deserving to exchange messages with; I have no response for him & will not answer him,” Khamenei tweeted.

“They called us to tell us that we’re going to hit back. Here’s the target, but we’re not going to hit the target. We’re going to just miss it.”

Given that Khamenei had said he wouldn’t even consider exchanging messages with Trump, it defies the belief that an Iranian official would call up Trump and inform him in advance that Iran was going to attack a U.S. military base and deliberately miss it.

Any Iranian attack that nearly struck a U.S. base would have made news. The only event that comes close to Trump’s description is a 2020 Iranian ballistic missile attack on al-Asad air base in northern Iraq, which came about six months after Trump scrubbed his planned attack.

The Islamic Republic fired ballistic missiles, with warheads weighing more than 1,000 pounds, at the base just days after Trump ordered the drone killing of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani on Jan. 3, 2020. Soleimani was the commander of the Quds Force, which is part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and conducts operations outside the country. U.S. officials claimed that he was actively developing plans for attacks on Americans.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said he received a post-midnight warning from Iran that its response to Soleimani was about to start. He was told Iran would target only locations where U.S. forces were present, but the message did not specify the locations, his spokesman said at the time.

Meanwhile, U.S. military intelligence had been watching Iran fill its missiles with liquid fuel and assumed the base would be a target. Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie Jr., commander of Central Command, waited until he believed Iran had downloaded the last of the commercial satellite photos, locking in the target, before he ordered about half of the 2,000 U.S. troops to evacuate the base, according to a detailed account by CBS News. The troops were divided by age — with the oldest ordered to remain to defend it.

The first missile hit at 1:34 a.m. on Jan. 8, less than 90 minutes after the message to Mahdi was received. The barrage lasted 80 minutes, with 11 of 16 missiles striking the base. Miraculously, no one was killed — and Iran later asserted to the United Nations that it was deliberate — but McKenzie estimated to CBS that had he not ordered the evacuation, 100 to 150 Americans would have been killed or wounded and 20 to 30 aircraft destroyed.

Trump initially bragged about the fact that no one was killed, but eventually it emerged that a U.S. contractor suffered a serious eye injury and 110 troops had traumatic brain injuries while sheltering in place, with 35 being sent to Germany and the United States for treatment. Trump dismissed the injuries as headaches: “But I would say, and I can report, it is not very serious. Not very serious.”

Asked to comment, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded, “I think you’re conflating a few different things here. President Trump’s recounting of what took place is true.” He did not respond to a request for documentation of Trump’s claims.

The Pinocchio Test

How many ways does Trump get this wrong? He claims that he hit Iran after a U.S. drone was downed, but in fact he canceled the strike, to the shock of his aides. He also asserts that Iran personally warned him they would attack a U.S. base and deliberately miss it. That’s ludicrous. In reality, a vague warning without a target was given to the Iraqi president — and most of the missiles hit the base. No one was killed, but that was more the result of a well-planned evacuation than Iranian targeting. Somehow Trump embraces Iran’s self-serving after-the-fact explanation to the United Nations. And while no one was killed, many soldiers suffered serious brain injuries.

Such a jumbled-up recollection of events is par for the course for Trump. So is the fact that he yet again earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios

Categories Lies, Trump

Mothers Against Greg Abbott Celebrates Defeat of Voucher Bill!

By dianeravitch
November 18, 2023 //
2

Mothers Against Greg Abbott is celebrating because Governor Gregg Abbott’s voucher proposal—his highest priority—was defeated for the fifth time this year. Once, in the regular legislative session, then again and again and again and again in four special sessions.

Abbott offered bribes: more funding for public schools, a pay raise for teachers—but the bribes didn’t persuade the rural Republicans who saw vouchers as a threat to their small community public schools.

Abbott threatened to primary Republicans who didn’t vote for vouchers. That didn’t work either. Now the Moms (MAGA!) have to go back to work to get their public schools funded.

This is their message, issued within hours after vouchers went down for the fifth time:

From Mothers Against Greg Abbott:

The Texas House has just voted down school vouchers.

This is a huge victory for Texas public schools… and for mothers, and others, like us. Today’s victory  wouldn’t have been possible without the help you provided over the last several months. We asked you to help us support public schools, and you stepped up time and again.

Our hard work paid off. 

I don’t want to spike the football to celebrate our success. Not least because our public schools might not have a football to spike if the voucher plan had succeeded. (Yes, I know that spiking the football in a high school game is a 15-yard penalty, but let’s go with the metaphor...)

The same people who tried to strip our public schools of funding, and to give that money to rich private schools instead, aren’t going away. They will be back. 

And so will we: We defended our public schools today, and we will defend them again.

At Mothers Against Greg Abbott, we believe in high quality, free public education for our children. We support our public school teachers and our public school children. And we won’t let a handful of anti-school activists steal our children’s futures from us.

We’re here in support of public education, and we aren’t going anywhere. The next time public education is on the legislative table, we’ll be there to defend it. 

We won’t spike the football then either. We’ll celebrate because our public schools will still be there — to educate our children, to help them become our future leaders, to create the civic engagement that we all need.

And, yes, to give our kids a football, a softball, a volleyball, a tennis ball, a baseball, a basketball, arts programs, orchestra, school plays, reading specialists, school counselors, beloved school librarians, and so much more. 

With love for our public schools and our public school educators,

Nancy Thompson, Founder
Mothers Against Greg Abbott

This week, our Mothers For Democracy Institute shares the mic with YOU this week on the newest episode of The Voucher Scam! 

Hosts Claire O’Neal and Nichole Abshire ask listeners this week to share their love of public schools and their worries about vouchers. With today’s VICTORY on school vouchers in the Texas House, there is no better time to start streaming. Tune in to the conversation, here ›››

And, if you like what you hear, shoot over a donation and help support our podcast series.

Mothers for Democracy Institute is a 501(c)(3) and
donations are Tax Deductible. We just launched our podcast series The Voucher Scam, but we more planned for 2024 to further support democracy and civics education. And we
would love your support.
https://bit.ly/voucherscam

Mothers For Democracy / Mothers Against Greg Abbott is the largest coalition dedicated to defeating the extremist MAGA movement in Texas. While we don’t agree on every topic, we all agree the Texas GOP isn’t Texas values.

Since 2021, we’ve been helping lead the Democratic resistance in Texas, we’ve organized thousands of local voters and our public issue campaigns have reached millions of Texans in key battleground areas. Now, we’re backed by thousands of Texas parents who are mobilizing in their own neighborhoods to ensure the Texas we hand over to the next generation is better than the one we’ve inherited. 

We’re sick and tired of being linked to a handful of extremist MAGA spokesmen—divisive politicians like Ken Paxton and Ted Cruz. We know it’s going to take all of us to defeat them this election cycle. The power of mothers and others like us means we know we can do it: It’s time for democracy to prevail. 

100% of our work is powered by individual donations and our average donation is just $23. We can’t stop until our children have the future they deserve. So this election cycle, we’re taking down Ted Cruz and dozens more of his Texas MAGA cronies. With you by our side, we’ll deliver the kind of leadership everyone living in Texas can be proud of. 

Support Our Work

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Lies, Parents, Privatization, Republicans, Resistance, Rural Schools, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

Valerie Strauss: Voters Give “Moms for Liberty” a Well-Deserved Whupping

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2023 //
4

Valerie Strauss reviews the local school board elections in several states, where the self-described “Moms for Liberty” were widely rejected. Despite their misleading name, most voters understood that they have an agenda to ban books, demonize teachers, and harass teachers and administrators with demands for censorship. Voters didn’t want more of the same.

Strauss writes:

In 2021, the right-wing “parents rights” Moms for Liberty claimed victory in 33 school board races in a single county in Pennsylvania — Bucks — saying that it had helped turn 8 of 13 school districts there with a majority of members who support their agenda.


Tuesday’s elections were a different story. In Bucks County, and many other districts across the country, voters rejected a majority of candidates aligned with the group’s agenda in what elections experts said could be a backlash to their priorities.
In Pennsylvania, Iowa, Virginia, Minnesota, New Jersey and other states, voters favored candidates who expressed interest in improving traditional public education systems over those who adopted the agenda of Moms for Liberty, which has been at the forefront of efforts to reject coronavirus pandemic health measures in schools, restrict certain books and curriculum and curb the rights of LGBTQ students, and other like-minded groups.

“‘Parental rights’ is an appealing term, but voters have caught on to the reality that it is fueling book bans, anti-LGBT efforts, pressure on teachers not to discuss race and gender, whitewashing history, and so on,” said political analyst Larry Sabato, a politics professor at the University of Virginia and founder and director of the Center for Politics. “Parents may want more input in the schools, but as a group they certainly aren’t as extreme as many in the Moms for Liberty.”


The school board results were part of a broader wave of support for moderate and liberal candidates in local and state elections who campaigned on support for traditional public education. An election analysis conducted by the American Federation of Teachers, the second-largest national teachers’ union, found that in 250 races across the country, candidates in different types of races backed by opponents of traditional public education lost about 80 percent of the time.

I read the many comments that followed Strauss’s article, and to my delight, every comment agreed that Moms for Liberty was phony and its program was to undermine freedom of students to learn and freedom of teachers to teach.

Here are a few:

Moms for Liberty is an antisemitic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, white nationalist, vaccine-ignorant, book-banning, child-endangering hate group. The sooner it lands on the ash heap of Trumpist history, the better.

Moms for Liberty really means Moms for facism and hate.

They overplayed their hand. ‘Tis the demise of so many movements. Plus, oh yeah, they are loud, obnoxious, overbearing, power-hungry, wrong-headed, and anti-American.

Sorry Youngkin..looks like your dragging on public school teachers and setting up Nazi Snitch hotlines to turn them in didn’t turn out to be your key to the WH.

Well, it seems book bans, anti-LGTBQ+ agendas, revisionist history and free speech restrictions on teachers are NOT the wave of the future.

Sod off, Klanned Karenhood. We’ve got your number.

Sounds like voters are catching on to the Minivan Taliban. Not before time.

If you want to raise your own offspring to be ignorant bigots, have at it, ladies. Can’t guarantee they will appreciate you ensuring they will never be able to compete in the real world. Meanwhile, leave the rest of us alone.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Curriculum, Democracy, Disruption, Education Industry, Extremism, Fake, Fascism, Freedom to Read, Librarians, Lies, Parents, Propaganda, Teachers

John Thompson: Will Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Schools Finally Tell the Truth?

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2023 //
2

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, wonders whether Ryan Walters, the state superintendent of schools, will at last tell the truth when he is in court? He’s been telling so many lies lately that it’s hard to know if he is aware of the difference between truth and lies.

Thompson writes:

In Oklahoma and across the nation, hate mongers like Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters have been willing to speak any falsehood they want, portraying them as political narratives, which are legal, even when they are lies. But if Walters repeats false claims when testifying in court, his lies could backfire.

Walters is facing lawsuits for wrongly firing Department of Education employees. One employee, the director of grant development, disproved Walters’ claim that, ‘We have applied for millions and millions of grants since I took office.’” She explained, “We have not applied for one single grant. That was a blatant lie.”

Moreover, State Auditor Cindy Byrd alleged that millions of COVID-19 relief money were misspent by Walters’ department, and the “Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he won’t rule out criminal charges against some state leaders after a report alleged misspending of COVID-19 relief money.” A.G. Drummond also has “described what was found as a pervasive culture of waste, mismanagement and apparent fraud. What concerned him the most was the mishandling of money that had been allocated for education expense accounts and tuition assistance programs.”

Walters also used state money to fund an inflammatory anti-union video which he called a “public awareness campaign” about teachers’ unions (which he labels as a “terrorist organization.”) As these investigations continue, Walters has doubled down on falsehoods such as testifying to Congress that the Tulsa Public Schools “maintains an active connection with the [Chinese government] through a program called the Confucius Classroom.”

But what is Walters doing now?

This week’s breaking news includes echoes of past lies. For instance, the Oklahoma Voice reports that the newly appointed Education Secretary Katherine Curry “said she resigned from her position after three months because the state superintendent’s administration limited her oversight of his agency.” Curry “said she repeatedly asked for financial documents showing how the agency budgeted and spent money, but the Oklahoma State Department of Education never provided them.” Curry said Walters’ refusal to respond was “‘100%’ the reason for her resignation.”

Second, two of the five state and federal suits by dismissed employees have gone to court. It is possible that he will be found accountable for both, his official role, and actions as an individual. 

Third, as the Oklahoman reports, after being fined for 14 cases of failure to report campaign donations, Walters now faces a possible fine for failure to report a donation from the 1776 Project PAC. The donor “says on its website it is ‘committed to abolishing critical race theory … from the public school curriculum.’” And his “amended pre-general election report still lists more than a dozen donors with an “x” before the last names, a mistake that prevents accurate searches of his contributions.”

The week’s fourth story may help explain Walters’ continuing lies and allegedly fraudulent behavior. He announced: 

“I fully stand behind President Trump, and I am excited to see him dismantle the Department of Education,”

“President Trump will be able to end radical indoctrination in our schools,” Walters said. “This woke ideology will be driven out of our schools. This cancer that is the teachers union will be driven out of our schools, and parents will be put in charge of their kids’ education.”

Finally, Jennifer Palmer reports that “the state Education Department is looking to hire someone to manage national media appearances, raising concerns the agency would be boosting Superintendent Ryan Walters’ national profile at taxpayer expense.” She adds:

A firm is being sought to provide print and digital op-eds to national outlets, coordinate national events and appearances for executive staff, write speeches and handle some communications. Records show the department wants a minimum of three op-eds, two speeches and 10 media bookings per month. 

Palmer explains that some Oklahomans have responded that “the public shouldn’t have to pay for Walters’ political ambitions.” But we shouldn’t overlook the costs to people across the U.S. They may have to deal with a new level of Walters’ propaganda.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Character, Lies, Oklahoma

Nikki Haley Talks About Schools in New Hampshire

By dianeravitch
November 5, 2023 //
24

We keep hoping that some sane Republican will emerge and eclipse The Former Guy. It’s probably a vain hope, but one likely prospect was Nikki Haley, former Governor of South Carolina and Trump’s Ambassador to the UN.

While campaigning in Londonderry, New Hampshire, Haley expressed her negative views about the nation’s public schools. Sadly, she parroted the standard Republican tropes.

She said:

“Stop the gender pronoun classes that are happening in the military,” Haley said, as the crowd cheered in response.

Mirroring the recent culture wars that have unfolded in local school districts like Goffstown, Haley called for “complete transparency in the classroom.”

“No parent should ever wonder what’s being said or taught to their children in the classroom,” Haley said.

Haley implored for the end of “national self-loathing” in schools. “Our kids need to know to love America,” Haley said, claiming that kids are being told America is a racist, rotten country.

“I was elected the first female minority governor in history,” Haley said. “America is not racist, we’re blessed.”

Categories Censorship, Curriculum, Extremism, Fake News, Gender, Lies, New Hampshire, Propaganda, Republicans

Paul Thomas: Our Perpetual “Crisis in Education” Is Fueled by Unreliable, Invalid Test Scores

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2023 //
10

Paul Thomas of Furman University is a clear-sighted analyst of education policy. He is fearless when it comes to calling out frauds. This post is a good example.

He writes:

“The administrations in charge,” write Gilles Deleuze in Postscript on the Societies of Control, “never cease announcing supposedly necessary reforms: to reform schools, to reform industries, hospitals, the armed forces, prisons” (p. 4).

Deleuze’s generalization about “supposedly necessary reforms” serves as an important entry point into the perpetual education crisis in the US. Since A Nation at Risk, public education has experienced several cycles of crisis that fuel ever-new and ever-different sets of standards and high-stakes testing.

Even more disturbing is that for at least a century, “the administrations in charge” have shouted that US children cannot read—with the current reading crisis also including the gobsmacking additional crisis that teachers of reading do not know how to teach reading.

The gasoline that is routinely tossed on the perpetual fire of education crisis is test scores—state accountability tests, NAEP, SAT, ACT, etc.

While all that test data itself may or may not be valuable information for both how well students are learning and how to better serve those students through reform, ultimately all that testing has almost nothing to do with either of those goals; in fact, test data in the US are primarily fuel for that perpetual state of crisis.

Here is the most recent example—2023 ACT scores:

I have noted that reactions and overreactions to NAEP in recent years follow a similar set of problems found in reactions/overreactions to the SAT for many decades; the lessons from those reactions include:

  • Lesson: Populations being tested impact data drawn from tests.
  • Lesson: Ranking by test data must account for population differences among students tested.
  • Lesson: Conclusions drawn from test data must acknowledge purpose of test being used (see Gerald Bracey).

The social media and traditional media responses to 2023 ACT data expose a few more concerns about media, public, and political misunderstanding of test data as well as how “the administrations in charge” depend on manipulating test data to insure the perpetual education crisis.

Many people have confronted the distorting ways in which the ACT data are being displayed; certainly the mainstream graph from Axios above suggests “crisis”; however, by simply modifying the X/Y axes, that same data appear at least less dramatic and possibly not even significant if the issues I list above are carefully considered….

This crisis-of-the-day about the ACT parallels the central problem with NAEP, a test that seems designed to mislead and not inform since NAEP’s “Proficient” feeds a false narrative that a majority of students are not on grade level as readers.

The ACT crisis graph being pushed by mainstream media is less a marker of declining educational quality in the US and more further proof that “the administrations in charge” want and need testing data to justify “supposedly necessary reforms,” testing as gas for the perpetual education crisis fire.

Please open the link to read this excellent analysis in full.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reform, Disruption, Education Industry, Education Reform, Failure, Hoax, Lies, Literacy, NAEP, Standardized Testing

Texas: Moms Against Greg Abbott Are the Real Deal

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2023 //
4

There are many wonderful groups fighting the extremists who control the state Republican Party, who regularly bow to Trump and try to surpass him in bigotry and hatred.

One of the groups I frequently donate to is called Mons Against Greg Abbott. You notice that their initials are M-A-G-A. I think of them as the “good MAGA.”

Here is their latest report:

Last week was a whirlwind of activity in the Republican-controlled Texas Senate — sadly, that’s not a positive.

Texas Senate Republicans proved once again how little they care for Texas families and demonstrated how willing they are to sacrifice their principles in support of an extremist MAGA agenda.

Here’s a quick roundup of some of the biggest votes that happened during the Texas Senate’s special session on education:

1. Their School Voucher Bill

As expected, last Thursday (Oct. 12) the Texas Senate passed a substantial voucher program (SB 1), creating an $8,000 / year Education Savings Account (ESA) for eligible students.

If adopted by the Texas House, the voucher program would allow families to access up to $8,000 of taxpayer money / student to pay for private school or homeschooling costs. $500 million of taxpayer money would be allocated initially to help fund the program.

SB 1 also included a provision that would require private schools to tell parents that they are not subject to federal and state laws regarding services to children with disabilities.

So… the takeaway here is that private schools, set to profit from our taxpayer monies will, in fact, NOT be subjected to either federal or state laws that help govern special needs education.

We’ll be closely monitoring the debate over school vouchers in the Texas House this week. So stay tuned, and keep fighting for our public schools!

2. Public School Funding

In addition to SB 1, the Texas Senate did pass a (smaller than desired) school funding bill (SB 2).

Under SB 2, $5.2 billion would be appropriated to public school funding — via an additional teacher retention bonus, increased funds for teacher salaries, an increase by $75 in the basic allotment, and adjustments to the basic allotment calculations.

To be blunt, no one is fooled by a $75 increase and SB 1 falls far short of what our public schools and our public teachers deserve.

In yet another example of poor leadership from the Texas Senate, on Friday, the Republican-controlled Texas Senate passed a sweeping ban on COVID-19 vaccine mandates (SB 7) for employees of private Texas businesses.

If passed, SB 7 would subject private Texas employers to state fines and other actions if they fire or punish employees or contractors who refuse vaccination.

3. Ban on COVID-19 Vaccines

The bill offers no exceptions for doctors’ offices, clinics or other health facilities.

What happened in the Texas Senate this special session is simply a failure of leadership. It is unacceptable that so many of our lawmakers voted against Texas families.

What happens now, in the Texas House, couldn’t be more important. Our legislative action team will be mobilized and doing everything we can to resist the type of draconian and destructive MAGA bills that came out of the Texas Senate last week.

And we are certain that more representatives will stand up and do the right thing. But making sure that happens will take all of us.

If you can support our movement with a contribution today, please know how much your support helps Mothers Against Greg Abbott continue the fight for Texas families.

Categories Elections, Extremism, Funding, Injustice, Lies, Republicans, Resistance, Separation of church and state, Shame, Supporting public schools, Texas

John Thompson: Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Ryan Walters Is a Shameless Liar

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2023 //
3

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher in Oklahoma, is appalled by the spread of a culture of lying. The state’s superintendent of schools is a textbook example of a man who lies openly, repeatedly, and without shame.

As the New York Times’ Peter Wehner wrote, “The first hours of the Trump presidency began with a demonstrable lie, when Mr. Trump, his press secretary and his closest advisers lied about the size of his inaugural crowd, photographic evidence to the contrary be damned.” Since then, state and federal officeholders, as well as Trump voters have become shockingly comfortable with “alt facts,” but as cases are heading to multiple courts, brazen falsehoods which have been portrayed as political narratives that are legal, even when they are lies, will become violations of law. Oklahoma’s State School Superintendent Ryan Walters is likely to become one case study in such transitions.

Walters is facing federal lawsuits for wrongly firing Department of Education employees. Another employee, the director of grant development, disproved Walters’ claim that, ‘We have applied for millions and millions of grants since I took office.’” She explained, “We have not applied for one single grant. That was a blatant lie.”

The Oklahoma Ethics Commission fined Walters $7,800 for filing late campaign reports 14 times. Most importantly, the state auditor alleged that $30 million of COVID-19 relief money was misspent by Walters’ department, and the “Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said he won’t rule out criminal charges against some state leaders after a report alleged misspending of COVID-19 relief money.”

Moreover, Walters’ promotion of lies (that presumably were not illegal) by Libs of TikTokand other rightwingers likely contributed to bomb threats to Tulsa-area public schools. As the top Democrat in the Oklahoma Senate said, she supports her House colleagues’ request for an impeachment investigation because, “These threats are a direct result of reckless rhetoric and must be addressed.”

Then, as KGOU reported, “Walters put TPS (Tulsa Public Schools) in the national spotlight for participating in the Chinese language program Confucius Classrooms, which has indirect ties to the Chinese government.

It’s hard to understand how anyone could believe Walter’s narratives, especially Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, who “is one of 18 members of the U.S. Senate who have called for an investigation into educational ‘funds from hostile foreign governments flowing into America’s K-12 schools.’” Lankford asserted “The CCP is the greatest threat to America’s security today,” and “The CCP’s involvement in the K-12 education system further demonstrates how far the Chinese government is willing go to expand its influence and promote its authoritarian agenda.”

But Walters’ recent stunt, testifying before Congress, should prove that he is willing to tell virtually any lie, defend it, and at least temporarily, convince some or many (or most?) Republican legislators to believe it. As the Oklahoman reports:

“Walters has often equated the nonprofit with the Chinese Communist Party and accused Confucius Classrooms of being part of a propaganda campaign by the party.

“He and the state Board of Education voted in August to require all Oklahoma school districts to report any foreign funding. Walters urged Congress and the state Legislature to prohibit schools from receiving funds from hostile foreign governments.”

Then, he testified to Congress, “We must protect our kids and not allow a hostile foreign government to indoctrinate them.”

In fact, as the Tulsa Public Schools replied:

All costs that related to the Confucius Classroom Coordination Office amounted to $6,240 over the 2022-23 school year. That included the price of the teacher’s training and travel, classroom supplies, cultural supplies and food for students.

The superintendent and founder of the Texas charter school which trained the Tulsa teacher, “Eddie Conger, drove to Oklahoma City to reiterate that to Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education during the board’s meeting Thursday. ‘I just want you to know that I’ve not sent any money to Tulsa Public Schools, not one dime,’ Conger said while speaking in public comment at the meeting. ‘I would have, but they said no.’”

Then, as reported by the Oklahoman, Walters testified to Congress on Sept. 19 that the ‘district maintains an active connection with the [Chinese government] through a program called the Confucius Classroom.’ But TPS says it ended its contract nearly a month before, on Aug. 25.”

It was reported by State Impact that according to:

Email correspondence obtained by State Impact between TPS and the State Department of Education, the district made the department aware of the contract termination the week before Walters testified otherwise, on Sept. 15. The department had asked for the information on Sept. 7.

Once upon a time we believed “A lie is a lie.” It’s been four decades since Ronald Reagan proclaimed, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Since then, the Rightwing has been extremely successful in undermining public services by telling big lies, arguing that what we now call “alt facts” may not be true but that’s just politics.

But as rightwingers ranging from hate mongers like Ryan Walters to Trump have been willing to speak any falsehood they want, they seem to be forgetting the legal danger of spinning their tales under oath. As long as they keep repeating false claims, it seems inevitable to me that their habits of repeating concrete and documented lies will backfire in court.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Character, Fake News, Lies, Oklahoma

Add Another Scandal to the GOP “Family Values” Facade

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2023 //
25

For decades, the GOP has claimed to be the party of “family values.” From what we have read recently about Governor Noem of South Dakota, who allegedly was romantically entangled with a Trump aide, and Rep. Lauren Boebert, ousted from a musical performance in Denver because she and her date were groping and vaping, the “family values” bit doesn’t fit.

And here is another broken vow, as reported by Business Insider:

A tale as old as time is playing out yet again: A politician who promotes the importance of family has abandoned them.

This time, it appears to be US Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican in South Carolina. Duncan’s wife, Melody Duncan, filed for divorce last week, citing her husband’s multiple affairs.

Melody Duncan, his wife of more than 30 years and mother to his three sons, accused her husband of at least two affairs in the divorce filing, which was first obtained and published by the Index-Journal, a local newspaper in Greenwood.

Duncan has been in office for 13 years and has long advocated for conservative Christian values.

“As a life-long social conservative, I am a strong advocate for life and traditional family values,” Duncan writes on his website. Accompanying the post is a stock image of the Holy Bible, a book famous for its views on infidelity.

He then pledges himself to the anti-abortion cause: “The most basic component of our society is the family.”

The family, plus a few mistresses, it would seem.

The divorce filing described Melody Duncan as a “dutiful wife” who “wholeheartedly supported” Duncan in his career. It cites a political event last month where Duncan echoed his wife’s sentiment.

At a “Faith and Freedom BBQ” on August 28, Duncan described his wife as “supportive and loving” while portraying himself as a “dedicated, dutiful husband,” according to the divorce filing. Duncan then “left the next day and went directly” to the home of his mistress, it says.

Categories Cheating, Lies, Republicans, South Carolina

Peter Greene on Chris Rufo’s Plans to Destroy Public Education

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2023 //
22

After I first listened to Chris Rufo’s infamous speech at Hillsdale College, something clicked. I saw the plan for the demolition of public education. Rufo spelled it out. He is a proponent of universal school choice, and he says the way to reach that goal is to create universal distrust of public schools. This is why we hear blarney about public school teachers “grooming” their students and indoctrinating them. It’s all part of the plan to create “universal distrust.” It’s a plan to privatize public education by disseminating lies and defaming teachers.

Peter Greene listened to Rufo’s speech and analyzes it closely. Please read to see the master plan, the hoax about “critical race theory,” and the rightwing plot to privatize public funding for education.

And though Peter says he summarized the speech to save you time, I urge you to listen to it. It’s scary.

Categories Education Industry, Hoax, Lies, Privatization, Propaganda, School Choice, Vouchers
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