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Betsy DeVos: In Her Own Words

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2016 //
36

What does Betsy DeVos say about education? What does she care about? What matters most? Charters and vouchers. The charter chain that she praises in this video operates for profit. As the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press recently wrote, she is a lobbyist for privatized alternatives to public schools. She doesn’t care for public schools. She doesn’t like them.
TRANSCRIPT Betsy DeVos Interview w Edward J. Pozzuolli

 

VIDEO:
Betsy DeVos of the American Federation for Children
Published on Aug 6, 2015
Ed Pozzuoli, President of Fort Lauderdale based law firm Tripp Scott, sits down with Betsy DeVos, Chairman of the American Federation for Children, to discuss the school choice movement.

 

00:11
INTRO (by Ed Pozzuolli INTERVIEWER):
Good evening and welcome this is Ed Pozzuolli president of Tripp Scott and with me today, I’m so honored, Betsy DeVos. Betsy, welcome.
Betsy DeVos:
Thank you Ed.
INTERVIEWER:
Betsy is the chairman of the American Federation of Children, and is a true Pioneer, and when I say Pioneer, I mean it in the in the real sense of the ‘School Choice Movement’ across the country.

 

First QUESTION by Ed Pozzuolli):
I know you’ve given time, and energy, and money, and strategic advice, and all those great things, and so given that you’re ‘The Pioneer’, where does the ‘School Choice Movement’ stand in the United States?

 

00:42
Betsy DeVos
Well, first of all Ed, thanks for having me here today, and it’s really an honor to be here.

 

So ‘Education (School) Choice’ has made some tremendous strides in the last 3 or 4 years. Now there are 24 States, currently, that have some form of a private school choice program, “Education Choice Program’. And we… We (American Federation for Children & allied organizations) advocate for, and do the politics around, um… all forms of choice. So we believe that parents, and we target programs that are specifically geared to answer the needs of low-income parents and students, we believe that they should have the full range of choices.

 

QUESTION by INTERVIEWER:
So what are they? Give our audience a…
01:24
Betsy DeVos:
Well, starting with private schools, which is probably the most difficult form to get too, politically in people’s minds, Charter Schools, On-line Schools, Virtual Schools, Blended Learning, um… any, any combination thereof, and frankly any, you know, any combination, or any kind of choice that hasn’t yet been thought of. Um. Education Savings Accounts (ALEC), that’s a new one as well. Ah… we, we change policy through political effort to elect or defeat candidates in States based on this issue… their support, or lack of support, for the issue. Then we work on the policies, the legislation, the actual programs that they would consider, and we advocate (READ “lobby”) to get those passed in those legislatures, and with the governors. Once they’re passed, we help to get help parents and kids to find schools, and schools to find parents and kids.

 

02:19
QUESTION by INTERVIEWER: So, not only do you with the politics in the legislation, you also help the actual parents with the opportunities that now are available.
Betsy DeVos:
Exactly, exactly. Because so often, especially low-income parents we have to use different ways to inform them, or make them aware of these opportunities,
INTERVIEWER: Right.
Betsy DeVos:
…and help them with the application process, um… because most of them are means-tested, help them with finding the resources to be able to make the application, and, and really just helping the programs to be successful. Indiana’s a really great example.
INTERVIEWER: Great example..
Betsy DeVos:
You know this is only, I think, the third or fourth year of the program it’s already the largest voucher program in the country…
INTERVIEWER: Yep.
Betsy DeVos:
…and the demand is huge, not enough, not all of the parents and the students that apply are able to get into the program every year. So there’s gonna (going to be) a demand for more providers, more schools, more opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators, and creators to come in, and start new ways of approaching education.

 

03:23
INTERVIEWER:
So in Indiana does the voucher program, but just to give our reviewers an understanding, lower-income families are also now have the choice of charter schools….
Betsy DeVos: Absolutely.
INTERVIEWER:
They also have the choice in the turnaround schools in Indiana.
Betsy DeVos: Yep.
INTERVIEWER:
And as well as the normal traditional public schools which are now having to compete with these other options.
Betsy DeVos:
Exactly, exactly.

03:43
QUESTION by INTERVIEWER:
What… are we still be seeing results? We’re looking at results-oriented for the benefit of the child, are we seeing that?
Betsy DeVos:
I… We definitely ARE seeing the results. And you know so many people get focused on school buildings, and the results of buildings, (REF to testing and evaluation systems in MI???) and I encourage them to really look at each individual child, cuz (because) that’s what we’re really concerned about. Right? How much is one kid learning, or what how much is one kid getting turned on to new opportunities, and new things that they haven’t um.. even been introduced to previously.

 

04:13
INTERVIEWER:
Now I know that you are in Florida is a, a dear spot in your heart…
Betsy DeVos: Yeah… (Dick & Betsy DeVos have at least one home in Florida in Vero Beach).
INTERVIEWER:
.. you live here, and so tell us a little bit about what’s going on in Florida, and some of the developments in the ‘School Choice Movement’ here.

 

04:26
Betsy DeVos:
Well, Florida I always cite Florida as really the farthest along, in terms of providing the widest range of choices, and the greatest access to those choices, of any state in the country. And from a political standpoint, having real bipartisan support for these choices. Because today, and I will, ya know, cite the very successful ‘Tax Credit Scholarship Program’ (vouchers) with over 70,000 children participating this year. Um, that program however, is under attack by those who are defenders of the ‘status quo’, and that will have to be litigated. But we’re very confident that as that program, and all the choices in Florida continue to grow, and as more students find success because of those choices, the constituency for ‘choices’, the full range, is going to continue to be very strong, and grow even stronger.

 

05:16
INTERVIEWER:
So those opportunities, explain to our viewers what that is.
Betsy DeVos:
The ‘Tax Credit Opportunity Scholarship’ is a tax credit against corporate taxes in the State of Florida. So if you have a business that pays Florida state corporate taxes, you can redesignate up to, I believe it’s 75%, of your corporate tax burden to the state annually into a ‘scholarship fund’. That scholarship fund then, is ‘vouchered out’, or giving out in, in incremental amounts to low-income students, and their families, to choose the school, or education setting, that’s gonna (going to) work best for them.

 

05:57
INTERVIEWER:
So then the child and their family can use the voucher and attend a private school…
Betsy DeVos:
Exactly.
INTERVIEWER:
…or parochial school or whatever…
Betsy DeVos:
Exactly.
INTERVIEWER:
And so since there are no ‘state monies’ involved it all essentially all ‘private monies’ with the ‘tax credit’ method.
Betsy DeVos:
Exactly. Exactly because those funds never go into the state coffers to begin with.

 

06:13
INTERVIEWER:
So for some of our ‘corporate partners’ who will watch this….
Betsy DeVos:
It’s a great opportunity… ABSOLUTELY it is (Betsy with a big smile).

 

06:19-06:23
INTERVIEWER:
Talk a little bit about in Florida the ‘charter school movement’, because that’s another element of ‘choice’ in Florida.
Betsy DeVos:
Well, the ‘Charter School Movement’ in Florida continues to be strong and grow even stronger. And ah,
INTERVIEWER:
By a quarter million kids…
Betsy DeVos:
Exactly. ‘Charter Schools USA’ (EMO), great provider of, of, of great opportunities for kids. Having visited one with Jon (Jonathan) and Sherry Hage (Founders of Charter Schools USA) not too long ago, (I’m) very impressed with ah, the approach to learning, to education, there. And, ah, charter schools are a very vibrant option and opportunity for parents in Florida too.

 

06:53
INTERVIEWER:
I think that’s true, and so what do you think the future of the ‘Choice Movement’ is in the United States?
06:59
Betsy DeVos:
I think as more and more parents realize that.. um.. their children’s future opportunities really are tied directly to the ability of each of their children to grow, and develop to their fullest potential, in other words get a good education, they are gonna (going to) become more demanding of that opportunity, of wider opportunities, because there are far too many.. um.. educational settings that just aren’t meeting the needs of all of the… all of today’s kids. And we think about the system that most kids are attending today the ‘traditional public schools’, and it’s a system that was brought to us two hundred years ago, by the Prussians, a very much an ‘industrial, factory model’ of education, and how much our society has changed today.
INTERVIEWER:
Right.
Betsy DeVos:
Technology has brought so many new opportunities, and we need to embrace that, and not only embrace it, but be bold about it, and allow people who are innovative and creative to come and help us think differently about how we could do education.

 

08:04
INTERVIEWER:
And so the ‘Choice Movement’ is truly what they called ‘disruptor’ in a certain sense….
Betsy DeVos:
It is indeed, it is indeed… (Betsy calls herself a “disruptor”). And the more of a ‘marketplace’ we have for education, the more, I think, the better.. um.. in general, kids are going to do educationally, and certainly the better individually, kids are going to be able to do.

 

08:23
INTERVIEWER:
And ultimately that’s the key…
Betsy DeVos:
And that is the key.

 

08:26
INTERVIEWER:
Well with that Betsy, I really do I want to take this opportunity and thank you again for your great work in this area and providing unbelievable ‘Educational Choice’ across the country, particularly for those who need it most, and so thank you.
Betsy DeVos:
Thank you Ed, thank you..

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Peter Greene Channels Betsy DeVos Giving a Speech

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2016 //
13

Peter Greene imagines Betsy DeVos’s first speech to the people of her hometown Grand Rapids, Michigan, explaining her belief in replacing public schools with privately managed charters and religious schools.

Here, in Greene’s words, is a portion of Betsy’s sales pitch for “school choice”; open the link to read it all:

You have to understand– when the founding fathers said that all men were created equal, they didn’t mean that all men are actually equal. The Puritans understood that some people are favored by God and therefor blessed with greater prosperity than others. These Chosen are more favored, more suited to take dominion over the rest of creation, more deserving of honor. They’re just better.

Are some people better than others just because they’re rich? No, that would be ridiculous. They’re rich because they’re better. People criticize me because every cent I have either was passed to me either by my parents or my husband, but those people are missing the point. God made me rich because I deserve it.

These signs of God’s favor and an individual’s superiority used to be pretty clearcut, and they used to be the foundation of America. But the founders made one crucial mistake– they let all sorts of people vote, and over time, those people got uppity. There was a time when America was still great, back when everybody knew his or her place, back when black people and poor people handicapped people and non-Christians didn’t try to take things they weren’t entitled to. Back when the homosexuals had the decency to pretend they didn’t exist. But those days are gone– ruined by a bunch of uppity people who won’t just shut up and listen to those of us who know better. Now homosexuals and blacks and women and Muslims can all strut around like they’re perfectly normal and it’s we decent Christians who have to hold our tongue and avoid saying simple things like “Jesus hates you and you’re going to hell.” It’s a topsy turvy world.

And it all starts in school.

We let the children of the better class of people mix with the children of Those People. Teachers don’t seem to know their place, and insist on teaching things they just shouldn’t teach, the kinds of things that students were never taught back when America was great– certainly not in the fine private schools my children and I attended. That is why I absolutely support the Common Core– someone has to tell Those People what they should teach. However, I understand that some of you are not fans of Common Core, and so I totally promise that the federal regulations requiring Common Core will be stricken from the law, along with the regulations requiring students to wear clown shoes and the regulations requiring lunch ladies to be certified Yeti’s. I guarantee you that in just a few months, all of those laws will be gone, and you will be free to have your state government enforce Common Core under some other name.

We will also do our best to crush both teacher unions and all those other unions, too. Unions are unnatural, a terrible attempt to interfere with the natural order of things. People who want to control working conditions and wages should not choose to be the kind of people who work at those jobs. It is their place to simply do their jobs and let those of us who Know Better make the important decisions.

Government has also interfered with the God-given natural order of things by forcing money to flow to people who don’t deserve it. If God wanted Those People to have money, He would have made them rich, and it is not government’s place to interfere with that just process. By getting government to takes its paws off schools, a choice and charter system can allow money to again flow to those who actually deserve it. A choice and charter system also allows children of the better people to get their education without having to deal with the children of Those People. Really, isn’t it better when people associate with their own kind?

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Religion, School Choice, Vouchers

In the Public Interest: The Six Banks That Finance Private Prisons

By dianeravitch
December 12, 2016 //
15

Donald Cohen leads an organization called “In the Public Interest” that keeps tabs on the privatization of public services.

He wrote recently to call attention to ITPI’s report on the banks that finance private prisons.

If you thought Wells Fargo’s fake account scandal was bad, get a load of this.

Wells Fargo is one of six banks keeping the private prison industry in business.

We know a lot about the private prison industry. We’ve found that private prisons increase the chances of people returning to prison and encourage mass incarceration. But we’ve always wanted to follow the money—so that’s what we did.

Our new report, The Banks That Finance Private Prison Companies, uncovers the banks that provide financing to the two largest private prison companies, GEO Group and CoreCivic (formerly CCA). The companies rely on Wells Fargo and other Wall Street banks for money to build new prisons, get huge tax breaks, and expand their control of the criminal justice system. All the while, the banks profit from charging interest and fees.
Private prison companies are licking their lips after Donald Trump’s victory. So are investors. Fortune magazine called CoreCivic “the biggest winner of the election,” since the company’s stock shot up more than 40 percent the next day.

Now we know who else would profit from Trump’s “law and order” policies and plans to deport millions of immigrants.

By providing loans, credit, and bonds to private prison companies, Wells Fargo and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have been complicit in mass incarceration and the criminalization of immigration, and they stand to profit even more.

But we’re fighting back.

The Portland City Council is currently considering a plan to stop borrowing money from banks like Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase that do business with private prison companies. Nationally, the #ForgoWells campaign is urging cities to cut ties with Wells Fargo because of the recent scandal and the bank’s involvement in the private prison industry and the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Support these campaigns and push your city to divest from the banks that keep the private prison industry in business. We need to be innovative in the Trump era, but even more importantly, we need to work together.

Categories Privatization

Alan Singer: Education Policy from Obama to Trump

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2016 //
20

Alan Singer greatly admires President Obama, as do I, except for his disastrous education policies, which laid the groundwork for privatization and deprofessionalization of teaching. Public school educators were scolded again and again by Arne Duncan for their alleged failings and their alleged low standards.

 

Singer here reviews the Obama record and tries to find something positive to say about the “reform” agenda of the past 15 years. Try as he might, he can’t find much to praise.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Testing

Arthur Camins to Trump: Hands Off Our Public Schools!

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2016 //
7

Arthur Camins writes in Huffington Post what should be a rallying cry for parents, educators, and citizens:

 

“Keep the government’s hands off our public schools!”

 

With his selection of Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education, Donald Trump has made it clear. He wants to take away your public school. Tell him, “Keep the government’s hands off our public schools!…”

 

Many need improvement, but it is democratically governed public schools that have made America great- not private schools and not charter schools. We all know that we can love what is imperfect. We need to strengthen the marriage between public schools and equity, not a divorce….

 

Democratically controlled schools for all are the norm. Trump and his supporters seek a taxpayer-funded private option to undermine and even replace the existing public school system. Make no mistake. Profit and exclusivity will trump quality and inclusiveness. Privatization means working class children get less and the wealthy keep getting more…

 

In short, in the name of liberty and freedom, the modern conservative movement represents an exaltation of selfishness. …A striking example is the growing campaign to shift federal and state funding from public schools to charter schools and private schools through vouchers. Sadly, the former has been supported by many Democrats, while the latter has been the long-held dream of “competition solves everything” Republicans and those seeking to tear down our historic church-state barriers.

 

For over a century, taxpayer-funded public schools that were governed by locally elected school boards lived side-by-side with privately funded and governed non-sectarian and religiously-affiliated schools. The vast majority of parents chose the former for their children. The prevailing, but often contested, assumption was that parents had a right to send their children to private schools, but at their expense.

 

We are at a crossroads. Integration, diversity, and democracy are under attack as unifying national priorities here in the US and around the world. The ethos of “be out for yourself” is gaining ascendancy over “I am my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper” as inequity and terrorism erode hope and security. In that context, entrepreneurs seek to undermine confidence and exacerbate parent anxiety about the quality and safety of public schools, and exploit a potentially vast education market. Persistent underfunding aids this cynical agenda….

 

We have a lot to do to improve education in the US. Inequity is persistent and too many schools fall far short on citizenship development. However, public opinion surveys consistently show that parents express greater satisfaction with and confidence in their children’s schools and teachers than with the schools they do not experience first hand.

 

Our great challenge ahead for education as with other critical features of community wellbeing is to find the language and solutions to mobilize people across their perceived disparate needs to find common cause.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Trump, Vouchers

The Mystery of the Gulen Turkish “Public” Schools

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2016 //
38

Jason McGahan, an investigative reporter for LA Weekly in California, looked into some strange practices in the schools affiliated with the Gulen  movement. Fethullah Gulen is an Islamic cleric who lives in seclusion in Pennsylvania. The Erdogan government in Turkey claims that Gulen was responsible for the recent failed coup. Whether he was or was not involved in the coup is unknown. Gulen’s role in the charter movement is also unclear. He has some undefined connection with 160 or so charter schools, which go under a variety of names. Many or most of their teachers are on work visas from Turkey, and typically most or all of their board members are Turkish. It is odd that foreign nationals would take control of running “public” schools in the United States, since the essential role of public schools is to teach citizenship. The organization frequently sponsors trips to Turkey for state legislators and their staff and for Congressional staff. These “free” trips promote good will.

 

The story that interested McGahan was the movement of cash from the charter schools to the Gulen organization. When “60 Minutes” reported on the Gulen schools a few years ago, one of the people interviewed said that Gulen teachers were expected to remit 40% of their wages to the organization. McGahan reports that the practice seems to be customary.

 

His informant was a Turkish man named Yunus Avcu. He described his monthly trips from Aurora, Colorado, to Santa Ana, California, to bring a briefcase full of cash to “the organization.” Avcu said the cash was the regular deductions from staff members’ salaries.

 

Avcu says these payments weren’t voluntary; he says the organization also obligated him to return about 40 percent of his own salary every month. He says Accord executives made an Excel spreadsheet at the start of the school year with the salary of every Turkish employee at every school in one column and the amount of money each would owe in another. Avcu says executives determined the amount each Turkish teacher had to return to the organization, based on the employee’s seniority, education level, marital status and number of children. “The organization was taking the money from the people,” Avcu says. “If you don’t pay this money, they don’t employ you. If you reject or refuse to pay this, you have to go back to Turkey.”

 

According to Avcu, the cash funded the worldwide organization of Fethullah Gülen, a controversial Turkish preacher living in self-exile in the United States….

 

The inspector general of the Los Angeles Unified School District alleges that a California charter school group, the Magnolia Educational and Research Foundation, is among the more than 160 U.S. charter school groups with ties to Gülen. Magnolia operates charter schools on 10 campuses in California, including eight in L.A. It also happened to be headquartered in the same office space as the Accord Institute [where Avcu delivered the cash each month]….

 

The CEO at Magnolia Public Schools, Caprice Young, denies any formal or financial affiliation with Gülen or the Gülen movement; she does, however, acknowledge that certain current and former directors of the foundation are believers in Gülen’s teachings. “Some of our founding principals had ties to Gülen,” Young tells L.A. Weekly, but she says those founders are no longer part of Magnolia….

 

Since 2011, the FBI has raided charter schools with ties to Gülen in Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. A Georgia audit found three schools engaged in bid-rigging to vendors with ties to Gülen. A New York audit found one charter school had leased its building in a way that netted millions of dollars for a New Jersey company with ties to Turkey. In Utah, authorities revoked the charter of a school tied to Gülen after an audit uncovered financial mismanagement. In Illinois, a charter group tied to Gülen is under federal investigation for funneling more than $5 million in federal grant money to insiders and away from the charter schools’ fund intended to extend Internet access to schools with low-income students….

 

Caprice Young is the somewhat unlikely face of the Magnolia Educational and Research Foundation. She assumed the helm as CEO in January 2015, and her hiring was widely interpreted as a move to both reform Magnolia’s management practices and rehabilitate its image. Young is the first American and first woman to serve as CEO at the charter organization, whose four previous CEOs were Turkish men.

 

Magnolia pays Young a salary of $236,000, and it has provided her the full-time services of a public relations specialist from Larson Communications, an L.A. firm that includes crisis management among its specialties. Magnolia pays the firm $12,000 a month.

 

Young is a former president of the LAUSD board; she served for four years before losing her re-election bid in 2003. From there, she went on to found the California Charter Schools Association, building it into a formidable statewide organization in her five years as president. By Young’s account, her specialty since stepping down from CCSA eight years ago has been turning around charter schools from the brink of financial collapse.
Young says she began working at Magnolia as a consultant in late 2014. Her personal connection to Magnolia dates back to 2001, when, as school board president, she voted to approve Magnolia’s first charter school, Magnolia Science Academy 1 in Reseda. She says she has fond memories of the eight Turkish scientists, businessmen and educators who founded the school; the news clipping that commemorates the school’s founding is framed and displayed on the wall of Magnolia’s conference room.

 

The eight charter schools operated by the Magnolia foundation in L.A. — in Van Nuys, Carson, Venice, Palms, Northridge, Bell and Reseda — received a collective $26 million in local, state and federal funds in fiscal year 2014, according to audited financial statements. The schools enroll a collective 2,600 students, the vast majority of them from disadvantaged families, school officials say. Eighty percent of Magnolia students are eligible for the school lunch program, and a similar proportion of them are low-income and students of color. Generally the Magnolia charters outperform their public school peers, but not across the board.

 

The article describes the multiple investigations of the Magnolia charter schools and recent decisions to deny their requests to open more charter schools.

 

There is so much mystery surrounding the Gulen schools that some investigative agency–the FBI?–should look into their origins, their ties (if any) to Fethullah Gulen, and their finances. Why in the world should we outsource public schools?

 

 

Categories Accountability, California, Charter Schools, Citizenship, Education Industry, Gulen Charter Schools, Privatization

John Thompson: We Can’t Let Betsy DeVos Destroy Our Public Schools

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2016 //
19

John Thompson is a teacher and historian in Oklahoma.

 

 

As the Daily Oklahoman’s Ben Felder explains, “Education savings accounts (ESAs) and vouchers have not been easy sells, including in the GOP-controlled Oklahoma Legislature.” Until this November, the same argument which defeated vouchers last year would have seemed to be persuasive. Our schools have been clobbered by a 27% decrease in per-student funding and they can’t stand a further reduction. Even a month ago, a grassroots coalition of educators and families appeared ready to send more teachers to the legislature, and to pass SQ 779, which would have raised teachers’ wages.

 

http://newsok.com/oklahoma-school-voucher-advocates-see-a-political-opening/article/5529475

 

Then a well-funded and false advertising campaign helped derail the teacher raise, and Betsy DeVos’ the American Federation for Children, “spent nearly $170,000 in Oklahoma campaigns this year, often in opposition to public school teachers who were also running.” So, Felder now reports, “last month’s election results on both the national and state level have some school choice advocates seeing a political opening.” He cites Republican Sen. Kyle Loveless, “‘There is definitely going to be some movement on education savings accounts this next year in Oklahoma … Last year we were a couple of votes short in the Senate but I think we picked those seats up this year.'”

 

In addition to American Federation of Children’s money, a series of Indiana corporate reformers have repeatedly come to Oklahoma and pushed the DeVos/Trump/Pence agenda. So, it is doubly important that Oklahoma legislators, like their counterparts across the nation, become aware of what former Gov. Mike Pence and the $1.3 million that DeVos and her political action committee poured into Indiana have bought – and at what price.

 

Chalkbeat Indiana’s Nicholas Garcia, in “Six Things to Know about Indiana’s School Voucher Program, A Possible Model for Ed Sec Nominee Betsy DeVos,” explains that “the number of students using vouchers rose from 3,911 in 2011, when the program launched, to 32,686 in 2016.” Originally, vouchers were pushed as a way to help poor students in failing schools, but “a growing portion of Indiana voucher users are from middle-class families, and growth has been greatest among suburban families.” Now, “60 percent of Indiana voucher users are white, and about 31 percent are from middle-income families — not exactly the student population that struggles most in the state’s schools.”

 

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/in/2016/11/30/six-things-to-know-about-indianas-school-voucher-program-a-possible-model-for-betsy-devos/

 

Even more disturbing is the way that vouchers have grown into a greater threat to the financial stability of schools, “In 2011, just 9 percent of voucher users had never before gone to public school, Chalkbeat reports, “That was true for more than half of students using vouchers in 2016. So, Indiana isn’t offering an escape from failing schools but a subsidy for many who would never attend a public school.

 

Moreover, researchers at Notre Dame University conducted a long-term study which found that “students who switched from traditional public schools to Catholic schools actually did worse in math.” They also increase student mobility which undermines student performance.

 

Of course, student performance outcomes aren’t the outcomes that motivate many voucher advocates. DeVos has said that her goal is not to “stay in our own faith territory,” but to “advance God’s Kingdom.” As Politico’s Benjamin Wermund reports, DeVos sees school choice as a path to “greater Kingdom gain.”

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-education-trump-religion-232150

 

Given the importance of religious issues in the voucher fights, an analysis by Mother Jones’s Stephanie Mencimer is timely. She found that, “Pence’s voucher program ballooned into a $135 million annual bonanza almost exclusively benefiting private religious schools–ranging from those teaching the Koran to Christian schools teaching creationism and the Bible as literal truth–at the expense of regular and usually better-performing public schools.”

 

Mencimer looked into the 316 schools receiving vouchers and she could only find four that weren’t religious. However, she found curricula that teaches creationism and Biblical stories and parables as literally true. Mencimer learned:

 

Among the more popular textbooks are some from Bob Jones University that are known for teaching that humans and dinosaurs existed on the Earth at the same time and that dragons were real. BJU textbooks have also promoted a positive view of the KKK, writing in one book, “the Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross to target bootleggers, wife beaters and immoral movies.”

 

Moreover, Mother Jones cites a young Muslim student who attended a voucher school for about eight weeks, “as he bounced around several schools on his way to becoming radicalized. In September, he was indicted for providing material support to terrorists after allegedly trying to join ISIS.”

 

Mother Jones further describes the deplorable student performance of many voucher schools. In 2015, less than 9 percent of the students at a Horizon Christian Academy campus passed the state standardized tests in math and English. And it adds telling details to the Chalkbeat Indiana’s narrative. Mother Jones found:

 

Some of the fastest growth in voucher use has occurred in some of the state’s most affluent suburbs. The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a Chicago-based think tank, recently concluded that because white children’s participation in the voucher program dwarfed the next largest racial group by 44 points, the vouchers were effectively helping to resegregate public schools.

 

It’s bad enough that Trump seeks billions of dollars to fund vouchers. But, especially in poor states and districts, the DeVos/Trump/Pence policy could be worse than anything previously imagined. Not all states and school districts that have been targeted by Amway billionaire Betsy DeVos are as vulnerable as those in Oklahoma, but as a recent NPR report explains, there are plenty of other systems that are already overwhelmed.

 

KOSU’s Emily Wendler and WBUR’s Tom Ashbrook, in “Public School Funding at a Loss, in Oklahoma and Elsewhere,” started a national tour of under-funded and challenged school systems to first answer the question “How Low Can a State Go?” and still educate its kids. Second, it asks what effect DeVos will have on these underfunded systems.

 

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2016/11/30/oklahoma-schools-four-day-weeks

 

Other states have taken the route pioneered by Kansas, Michigan, and Oklahoma and deliberately starve their governmental services. This new voucher campaign, combined with public and private charters, and virtual schools could push many of those states across a “tipping point,” and creating new lows in public schooling, constitutional democracy, and common decency.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Oklahoma, Privatization, Vouchers

Study: Portrait of a “Teach for All” (TFA International) Teacher

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2016 //
10

This study appears in the Education Policy Analysis Archives. Written by Michelle Gautreaux and Sandra Delgado of the University of British Columbia in Canada, it describes the origins of Teach for All, the international wing of TFA, which destroys the teaching profession and unions wherever it goes.

Here is the abstract:

“This article employs narrative analysis to examine how the media in 12 different countries characterize the Teach for All (TFA) teacher. Examining mass media narratives in these 12 countries illustrates that there are some remarkable commonalities in the narratives and character portraits co-constructed and propagated by the media. At the core of these narratives is the notion of a problem in education. This problem justifies the creation and emergence of a character, commonly constructed in opposition to traditionally certified teachers, who embodies the characteristics and attributes of the contemporary neoliberal subject. This article discusses the implications of this character’s widespread representation; namely, how does the character construction influence the broader public perception about education and how is it contributing to the (re)imagination of the role of the teacher?”

Where did Wendy Kopp get the idea for Teach for All? At a meeting sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative. She suddenly realized she could bring her money-making plan to the rest of the world, appearing to do good while obliterating the teaching profession and unions.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, International, Privatization, Teach for America

Mike Konzcal: The Brilliance of Trump’s Rhetoric

By dianeravitch
December 10, 2016 //
23

Mike Konzcal of the Roosevelt Institute sat down and watched Donald Trump’s campaign speeches in search of the rhetoric that turned out to be effective.

 

Contrary to common belief, working people are not turned off by the rich; if anything, they admired Trump’s opulence and outrageous displays of ostentation. He had made it; they could too. Sort of like Trump University, where the Master of Money promised that  you too could get rich by studying his example.

 

What Konczal realized after a time was that Trump focused on jobs and wages and spoke in simplistic language that fired up the crowds and led them to believe that he could restore good jobs that had been lost to automation and free trade. Trump made promises that he could not keep but did not care. In that sense, he was like other demagogues in history who make bold promises while scapegoating the “others,” the minorities who are to blame for our problems.

 

He writes:

 

His speeches are full of virulent ethnic nationalism, to be sure — that’s what I noticed during the campaign — but he also has a way of approaching the economy that sabotages Democratic positions effectively, even when those positions are strong.
There was a time I assumed if the Democrats “moved left” they could win over the working class, even those who don’t usually vote. Now I realize that this move is far more complicated than simply getting past neoliberalism. With Trump at the helm of the conservative movement for the foreseeable future, creating effective agendas and messages that hit home will be even harder.

 

Trump talked about jobs. All the time. This gets lost in the coverage, which focused on the inflammatory scandals. Listen:

 

When I win on November 8, I am going to bring back your jobs. The long nightmare of jobs leaving Michigan will be coming to an end. We will make Michigan the economic envy of the world once again. The political class in Washington has betrayed you. They’ve uprooted your jobs, and your communities, and shipped your wealth all over the world. They put new skyscrapers up in Beijing while your factories in Michigan crumbled. I will end the theft of American prosperity. I will fight for every last Michigan job. — Trump, Michigan, October 31, 2016
It’s the first and most consistent thing he discusses. It’s implied that he’s speaking of a specific kind of job, a white, male, breadwinning manufacturing job. He doesn’t discuss “the economy” and how it could work for all, he doesn’t talk about inequality, he doesn’t talk about automation and service work. He just declares that you will have a high-paying manufacturing job when he is president…

 

Trump never blames the rich for people’s problems. He doesn’t mention corporations, or anything relating to class struggle. His economic enemies are Washington elites, media, other countries, and immigrants. Even when financial elites and corporations do something, they are a combination of pawns and partners of DC elites.

 

It’s important to watch that trick, it conceals who has agency under runaway inequality. From a June speech in western Pennsylvania: “Our politicians have aggressively pursued a policy of globalization, moving our jobs, our wealth and our factories to Mexico and overseas. Globalization has made the financial elite who donate to politicians very wealthy. But it has left millions of our workers with nothing but poverty and heartache.” The rich buy politicians (and Trump, of course, can’t be bought!) but he doesn’t turn around and denigrate those rich people.

 

Now, as we watch Trump staff his cabinet with billionaires and generals, we must be prepared to hold him accountable for making promises that he has already forgotten. His idea of “Make America Great Again” seems to be to turn the clock back a century, when corporations, working conditions, and the climate were unregulated. That would be the 1920s. In the field of education, he seems to want to turn the clock back two centuries, before there were public schools. At that time, states gave money to religious schools in some communities, like New York City. The idea of public schools, open to all, was a victory for democracy. If he really wanted to make America great again, he would want to make our public schools the best in the world. But he doesn’t. He wants to replace them with vouchers and charters. Back to 1820.

 

Categories Economy, Privatization, Trump

Politico: Michigan is a Horrible Model for U.S. Education

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2016 //
19

Caitlin Emma, Benjamin Wermund, and Kimberly Hefling, staff writers at politico.com, took a close look at Michigan and answered the question, what hath Betsy DeVos’s obsession with choice done to the schools of Michigan?

 

Unless you are a choice fanatic like DeVos, the answer is not encouraging.

 

Despite two decades of charter-school growth, the state’s overall academic progress has failed to keep pace with other states: Michigan ranks near the bottom for fourth- and eighth-grade math and fourth-grade reading on a nationally representative test, nicknamed the “Nation’s Report Card.” Notably, the state’s charter schools scored worse on that test than their traditional public-school counterparts, according to an analysis of federal data.

 

Critics say Michigan’s laissez-faire attitude about charter-school regulation has led to marginal and, in some cases, terrible schools in the state’s poorest communities as part of a system dominated by for-profit operators. Charter-school growth has also weakened the finances and enrollment of traditional public-school districts like Detroit’s, at a time when many communities are still recovering from the economic downturn that hit Michigan’s auto industry particularly hard.

 

The results in Michigan are so disappointing that even some supporters of school choice are critical of the state’s policies.

 

“The bottom line should be, ‘Are kids achieving better or worse because of this expansion of choice?’” said Michigan State Board of Education President John Austin, a DeVos critic who also describes himself as a strong charter-school supporter. “It’s destroying learning outcomes … and the DeVoses were a principal agent of that.”

 

The links are in the article, as well as a puzzle. Check out the link to CREDO at Stanford (funded by the Walton Foundation), which issued a report on Michigan charters and praised them extensively. How does the CREDO finding make sense to Michigan’s low standing on the National Assessment of Education Progress? How does it make sense in light of the fact that Detroit is the worst-performing urban district tested by NAEP?

 

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Detroit, Education Industry, Michigan, NAEP, Privatization, Testing
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