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Jeff Bryant: Trump and DeVos Want Vouchers to Promote Religious Fundamentalism

By dianeravitch
March 2, 2017 //
78

This is an alarming post. Read at your own peril.

Trump gave a shout out to the glories of vouchers when he spoke to Congress. DeVos, a religious zealot, smiled with gratification as her 30-year crusade to transfer public funds to religious schools now appears near accomplishment.

Trump pointed to a young woman who had achieved success because of receiving a voucher funded by a tax credit in Florida. Her accomplishments are considerable.

But what kind of school did she attend?

“Over the past three years, Merriweather has had the opportunity to tell her story in numerous media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The Hill, the Tampa Bay Times, and The 74 (a pro school choice media site funded by charter school and voucher advocates such as the Walton Family Foundation and the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation). She’s also been the subject of pro school choice profiles in politically conservative news outlets. And after Merriweather was highlighted at the Trump’s speech, she was interviewed by Fox News.

“None of this is to take away from the sincerity of Merriweather’s writing or the validity of her lived experience. But it needs to be noted that few public school students have had such prominent venues to repeatedly tell their success stories.

“Further, the school Merriweather attended through the school choice program Trump champions is no ordinary school.

“Religious Fundamentalism At Taxpayer Expense

“The private school Merriweather attended and graduated from is the Esprit De Corps Center for Learning in Jacksonville which she has described in testimony she gave last year to a U.S. House Committee as “a church based school, a church that I actually attended.”

“According to the Esprit de Corps website, the “vision for the school was birthed from the mind of God in the heart of Dr. Jeannette C. Holmes-Vann, the Pastor and Founder of Hope Chapel Ministries, Inc.” The education philosophy guiding the school is based on “a return to a traditional educational model founded on Christian principles and values. In accordance with this vision, each component of the school was purposefully selected and designed.”

“A significant “component” of the Esprit de Corps school is its adherence to a fundamentalist Christian curriculum. Its official listing in a Jacksonville directory of private schools describes its education program as a “spiritual emphasis and Biblical [sic] view, which permeates the A-Beka curriculum.”

“A Beka is one of the most widely used K-12 curriculum series for home schooling and private Christian schools,” Rachel Tabachnick explains to me in an email. “This includes many private schools receiving public dollars through voucher and tax-credit programs.”

“Tabachnick has collected textbooks used by voucher and corporate tax-credit schools for over ten years, including curriculum from A Beka Book and Bob Jones University Press.

“In an investigative article for Alternet in 2011, Tabachnick writes, “Throughout the K-12 curriculum, A Beka consistently presents the Bible as literal history and science. This includes teaching young earth creationism and demeaning other religions and other Christian faiths including Roman Catholicism.”

“An A Beka history text she reviews teaches that “socialist propaganda” exaggerated the Great Depression “so that Franklin Delano Roosevelt could pass New Deal legislation” and that the Vietnam War “divided the country into the ‘hawks who supported the fight against Communism, and doves, who were soft on Communism.’”

“Tabachnick quotes a fourth-grade A Beka text that celebrates President Ronald Reagan’s presidency under a banner of “A Return to Patriotism and Family Values.” In describing President Bill Clinton’s administration, an A Beka high school history text calls First Lady Hilary Clinton’s effort to overhaul health care as a “plan for socialized medicine” and describes Vice President Al Gore as “known for his radical environmentalism.”

“Christ Is History, Africans Are Inferior

“In her emails to me, Tabachnick shares excerpts from a newer edition of A Beka’s textbook on “History and Civil Government” that teaches, “The first advent of Jesus Christ to earth – His incarnation, birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension – is the focal point of history. History began with God and His act of Creation. I climaxed with Gods’ act of redemption.” (emphasis original)

“In the current edition of A Beka’s 10th grade history text “World History and Cultures in Christian Perspective” Tabachnick shares with me, “modern liberalism” is described as “the desire to be free from absolute standards and morals, especially the Scriptures.”

“From this text, high school students like Denisha Merriweather learn, “The beginning of the 20th century witnessed a cultural breakdown that threatened to destroy the very roots of Western civilization. The cause of this of this dissolution was the idea or philosophy known as liberalism.” (emphasis original)

“The curriculum used by Esprit de Corps also taught Merriweather and her African American classmates about the innate inferiority of the African continent and its people.

“The textbooks teach the narrative that the people of African nations descended from Noah’s son Ham and that Ham’s descendant Nimrod led the rebellion against God by building the Tower of Babel,” Tabachnick tells me. This Biblically supported lesson is often referred to as “the curse of Ham,” which has historically been a primary justification for slavery among Southern Christians, according to numerous sources.

“In the A Beka text “History and Civil Government,” Adam and Eve are referred to as “the parents of humanity” and racial variations in human kind are described as the result of “recessive traits” due to “(1) a rapidly changing environment, (2) a small population, (3) and extensive inbreeding.”

“Current A Beka texts also falsely claim that only ten percent of the population of Africa is literate and that literacy rates may drop further because of communists shutting down mission schools,” Tabachnick tells me.”

Read the entire article. Ask yourself whether religious fundamentalism provides the kind of education that our nation’s children need to prepare for a complex world.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Education Reform, Religion, Separation of church and state, Trump, Vouchers

Mike Klonsky on Trump’s Vapid Vision of Education

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2017 //
12

Mike Klonsky has a sharp post tonight critiquing Trump’s meaningless blather about education.

http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2017/03/trumps-empty-statements-on-education.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mikeklonsky+%28SmallTalk%29

Of course, he repeatsArne Duncan’s favorite line about education being the civil rights issue of our time (so long as it does not involve “forced” racial integration).

“But if Duncan’s civil rights phrase mongering was tragedy, hearing it again from Trump, an open racist and rabid opponent of civil rights, was farce. Especially, coming as it did, a day after he and Ed Sec. Betsy DeVos held up Historic Black Colleges and Universities as their model of “choice” without once mentioning HBCUs’ history as a response to Jim Crow and racial segregation policies which prevented black and other minority students from attending many white-only universities.

In other words, a throw-back to Plessy v. Ferguson kind of choice.

DT presented an image of children growing up in “a nation of miracles”, as in, it will take a miracle for many of them to grow up. But as we have learned, there are no miracles in successful schooling. Just the hard work of teachers, parents and communities in a supportive and well-funded system of public education.”

Klonsky points out that many millions of federal dollars are already supporting charter schools, with no regard for quality.

But Trump has a larger goal:

“…families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them'” said Trump.

Klonsky asks:

“Are students really going to be able to choose a home school that’s right for them?

“The inanity of the statement didn’t escape Stephen Colbert who said he would pick Trump’s home for his kids. “It seems very nice.”

Funny, if I could choose any home in America, it would not be Trump’s. With all the gold and glitter, it feels cold, empty, mirthless, unloving.

Categories Trump

People for the American Way Reviews Trump’s Speech

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2017 //
9

This letter was written by Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way. I joined. I hope you will too. PFAW and the ACLU are crucial organizations today.

A new message from your friends at People For the American Way.

Let’s be clear. With Donald Trump’s speech last night being heralded by some in the media for striking a “softer tone” and sounding “more presidential” than Trump’s previous overtly hateful, ego romp, lie-filled speeches, the threat from Trump and his Republican allies just became more dangerous, not less.

There was no “pivot.” What we saw was the same hate, the same bigotry, the same extremism, and the same insidious distortions of reality … but in a shiny new package now loaded onto a tele-prompter, couched in the kind of Orwellian doublespeak and slick marketing that could give Trump and Republicans a boost in popularity, despite their having the exact same agenda. Nothing has changed. But they’re learning to hide it better.

It will be up to all of us to expose the truth and protect vulnerable Americans, our values, and our Constitution from a more sinister approach by the Trump administration in enacting its dark and radical vision for our country.

Something that is not getting nearly enough attention in the reporting so far of Trump’s speech is that the president leaned heavily into his fearmongering about crime committed by immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are responsible for no more violent crime than any other members of the population at large, but that’s clearly not the impression given by Trump’s cherry-picked examples and sad personal stories that represent the exception, not the rule.

Trump’s announcement of a new program to collect and elevate the stories of people who have been victims of crime specifically by immigrants is a dark and divisive platform to sow suspicion and stoke fear of a particular threat that does not exist. He has created “the other” that he is trying to get the country to fear. It got him an electoral vote majority and he’s going to use to try and pass a hateful agenda. It’s not unlike Trump’s promotion of a wild conspiracy theory about millions of “illegal” voters in 2016 in an attempt to create fertile ground for voter suppression policies to keep Democrats from ever coming back into power.

One of the biggest hypocrisies was Trump accusing others of creating division while flagrantly promoting a pernicious distrust of all noncitizens, and whitewashing the fact that the current partisan divisions in Washington — which he alluded to several times while gesturing towards the Democratic side of the chamber — were created by Republicans with their extremism and refusal to do their job during the Obama years … perhaps most notably with Senate Republicans’ anti-constitutional blockade of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

Of course, Trump called for the swift confirmation of his own Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, noting that Gorsuch had come from his list of potential picks released during the campaign. That list, however, was compiled by right-wing groups and filled with unacceptable extremists, of which Gorsuch is one of the most extreme.

Trump was still in full campaign mode — he used grieving families as political props, and made big, vague promises with no details about how to achieve (or afford) them. And he pandered to the demographic base of working class whites that, outside of the Republican Party faithful, forms the core of his support, with anecdotes about brands (like Harley Davidson) and kind words and promises for the police and military.

Trump even emphasized education as “the civil rights issue of our time” and yet he stripped transgender students of protections given to them under the Obama administration. Further, his Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, claimed that Historically Black Colleges and Universities were the “real pioneers when it comes to school choice” despite their being founded to combat segregation, and he supports vouchers which would divert federal funding to private schools which are allowed to discriminate, fundamentally making education even less equal.

With his administration void of actual accomplishments, he resorted to claiming some of the accomplishments of his predecessor as his own. Trump likes to say he inherited a mess, but he inherited an economy that had been picking up steam for years after the debacle created by the previous Republican administration and despite congressional Republicans’ best efforts at economic sabotage all throughout the Obama presidency.

Astonishingly, Trump even subtly tried to highjack ownership of the most popular ideas in the Affordable Care Act.

Finally, while Trump mostly stuck to the teleprompter and avoided repeating some of his most outrageous whoppers, the level of dishonesty was still shocking by any normal standards. In addition to the selective use of misleading stats and examples about immigrants, crime, and terrorism, Trump cast all regulations and standards set by the government to protect consumers, workers, and the public as government overreach that takes away Americans’ choices and even their rights. A dangerous and corrosive message to sell a dangerous and corrosive agenda…

We have our work cut out for us. With that said, I need to thank you on behalf of all of us here at People For the American Way for your amazing support and activism. Every time you have donated, taken action, or shared an important piece of reporting or analysis on the Right’s agenda and tactics has made a tremendous impact in building the Resistance movement. And, this morning, in the light of that address, it is clearly needed now more than ever.

Sincerely,

Michael Keegan, President

Donate here:

https://secure.pfaw.org/site/SPageNavigator/ms_donation_16006;jsessionid=00000000.app30103b?autologin=true&utm_medium=email&utm_source=fr&utm_campaign=jointsession&NONCE_TOKEN=AF8E158A84ECB43D6391BF58FD675CD6

1101 15th Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005-5002, 202-467-4999

Categories Trump

Who Is Trump’s Poster Girl for Vouchers?

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2017 //
40

During his speech to Congress last night, Teump singled out a young woman in the audience as an exemplar of the benefits of vouchers. He said:

“Joining us tonight in the gallery is a remarkable woman, Denisha Merriweather. As a young girl, Denisha struggled in school and failed third grade twice. But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning, with the help of a tax credit scholarship program. Today, she is the first in her family to graduate, not just from high school, but from college. Later this year she will get her masters degree in social work.”

Mitchell Robinson, professor of music at Michigan State University, sent the following comment:

“Denisha Meriweather is not simply “an intelligent, dynamic and motivating individual whose life was changed by the school choice policies promoted by Betsy DeVos.” She’s an employee of “Step Up For Students”, a state-approved nonprofit scholarship funding organization that helps administer the very Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program she benefitted from. [My note: Step up for Students has more than $500 million in assets. https://www.stepupforstudents.org/wp-content/uploads/2012.13-SUFS-Form-990.pdf]

“Ms. Meriweather has also been writing versions of this article at least since she graduated from college in 2014. So, to date, the only job Ms. Meriweather has secured as a result of receiving her voucher is working for the organization that gave her the voucher, and trying to influence public opinion on the worth and value of vouchers.”

Why we must NOT give Betsy DeVos and school choice “a chance”

Categories Betsy DeVos, Florida, School Choice, Trump, Vouchers

Are Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos Civil Rights Leaders of Our Time?

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2017 //
30

The title of this post may strike you as a strange question, in light of the well-known history of the Trump Organization in discriminating against blacks who sought to rent their properties and the DeVos’s longstanding role as the antagonist of government programs of all kinds, especially in education. History in this country shows that government, not the private sector, is the most faithful guarantor of rights and equity.

Yet in his speech last night, Trump picked up on the deceptive line that we have heard from free-market ideologues for the past 15 years:

Education is the civil rights issue of our time.

I am calling upon Members of both parties to pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children. These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school that is right for them.

Joining us tonight in the gallery is a remarkable woman, Denisha Merriweather. As a young girl, Denisha struggled in school and failed third grade twice. But then she was able to enroll in a private center for learning, with the help of a tax credit scholarship program. Today, she is the first in her family to graduate, not just from high school, but from college. Later this year she will get her masters degree in social work.

We want all children to be able to break the cycle of poverty just like Denisha.

In reality, the true civil rights issue of our time is the fight to save public education as a public responsibility, responsible for all, doors open to all, staffed by well-prepared teachers.

Trump may have given a big boost to the school choice movement–vouchers, charters, cybercharters, homeschooling–but his embrace should be the kiss of death for those who know that his bona fides as a leader of the civil rights movement are non-existent, and that our public schools are vital to our democracy.

It is not difficult to open the public coffers and have a free-for-all for anyone who wants part of the public treasury. The for-profit fly-by-night charter schools that populate Michigan’s education landscape must have been heartened by Trump’s declaration. The basement voucher schools no doubt have dreams of public dollars coming their way. The fraudulent cybercharter operators who rake in millions in profit must be rubbing their hands with glee.

It is hard, by contrast, to build and sustain high-quality public schools in every community.

Clearly this administration has neither the will nor the heart to do what society needs. They do not intend to increase federal funding; they intend to divide it up among all who want a share. That will cripple community public schools, and they know it. The victims will be the great majority of children who are still enrolled in public schools.

The New York Times this morning blasted Betsy DeVos’ “fake history” of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, recognizing that they began not as “school choice,” but as a response to racism and exclusion.

The same editorial board has faithfully parroted the virtues of charters and school choice, and one day may have to deal with its contradictory stance.

Privately owned and managed charters do not improve public schools; they take funding away from public schools, thus disadvantaging them even further. In the name of “choice” for the few, they weaken the schools that serve whoever arrives at the schoolhouse doors.

Let’s be clear about “school choice,” at least in this country. It was born of racism in the mid-1950s as a way to evade the Brown v. Board decision of 1954. Southern governors and senators took up “choice” as their rallying cry. For many years the term itself was stigmatized because of its history.

The fact that it has been revived by entrepreneurs, well-meaning advocates, and closet racists doesn’t change its history or its purpose: It will undermine public education. It may “save” a child here or there, while most children will be lost in a free-market system of competition in which the public abandons its responsibility to provide the best possible education for all children.

We cannot let that happen. If choice were the answer, we would all look to Milwaukee as a national model, which has had vouchers, charters, and public schools since 1990. Twenty-six years is time enough for an experiment to demonstrate its worth. Milwaukee today has a public system that disproportionately enrolls the high-needs children that the other schools don’t want. It is also one of the lowest performing urban districts in the nation on the federal tests. Not even Trump or DeVos would have the nerve to call it a national model.

Our public schools need our support. Trump and DeVos are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Their sheep’s clothing is transparent. No one should be fooled by their phony advocacy for poor kids or education. They advocate for an unregulated free-market in education that will leave most children behind, especially those who are the most disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances.

They must not be permitted to destroy public education. They must be stopped: by parents, teachers, students, and everyone of us who attended public schools. In every community, we must fight for our democracy and stop the raid on our public treasury.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Resistance, School Choice, Trump

How to End Trump’s Reign of Malevolent Ignorance

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2017 //
13

Everywhere I turn, people are citing the Indivisible Guide.

These are the former Congressional staff members who wrote a guide to making change.

The Indivisibles are connecting people with their neighbors.

Their guide encourages people to attend Town Halls and to speak directly with their elected representatives. It shows what members of Congress care about.

The Trump apologists call them “paid protesters,” but at each Town Hall, individuals get up and say where they live and announce that no one is paying them.

They are worried about their health care, their Social Security, their public schools.

They are worried about Trump’s ties to Russia.

They want to know why their Senator or Congress member is not doing their job. They want answers. They are informed.

This is your democracy. Fight for it!

 

The introduction:

“A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR RESISTING THE TRUMP AGENDA

“Former congressional staffers reveal best practices for making Congress listen.

“NOTE FROM THE INDIVISIBLE TEAM

“Since this guide went live as a Google Doc, we’ve received an overwhelming flood of messages from people all over the country working to resist the Trump agenda. We’re thrilled and humbled by the energy and passion of this growing movement. We’ll be updating the guide based on your feedback and making it interactive ASAP. You can sign up for updates at http://www.IndivisibleGuide.com.

“Every single person who worked on this guide and website is a volunteer. We’re doing this in our free time without coordination or support from our employers. Our only goal is to help the real leaders on the ground who are resisting Trump’s agenda on their home turf. We hope you will take this document and use it however you see fit.

“We want to hear your stories, questions, comments, edits, etc., so please feel free to ping some of us on Twitter: @IndivisibleTeam,

“And please please please spread the word! Only folks who know this exists will use it.

“Good luck — we will win.

“INTRODUCTION

“Donald Trump is the biggest popular-vote loser in history to ever call himself President. In spite of the fact that he has no mandate, he will attempt to use his congressional majority to reshape America in his own racist, authoritarian, and corrupt image. If progressives are going to stop this, we must stand indivisibly opposed to Trump and the Members of Congress (MoCs) who would do his bidding. Together, we have the power to resist — and we have the power to win.

“We know this because we’ve seen it before. The authors of this guide are former congressional staffers who witnessed the rise of the Tea Party. We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress. We saw them organize locally and convince their own MoCs to reject President Obama’s agenda. Their ideas were wrong, cruel, and tinged with racism— and they won.

“We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda — but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness. Trump is not popular. He does not have a mandate. He does not have large congressional majorities. If a small minority in the Tea Party could stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump.

“To this end, the following chapters offer a step-by-step guide for individuals, groups, and organizations looking to replicate the Tea Party’s success in getting Congress to listen to a small, vocal, dedicated group of constituents. The guide is intended to be equally useful for stiffening Democratic spines and weakening pro-Trump Republican resolve.

“We believe that the next four years depend on Americans across the country standing indivisible against the Trump agenda. We believe that buying into false promises or accepting partial concessions will only further empower Trump to victimize us and our neighbors. We hope that this guide will provide those who share that belief with useful tools to make Congress listen.

“WHO IS THIS DOCUMENT BY AND FOR?

“We: Are former progressive congressional staffers who saw the Tea Party beat back President Obama’s agenda.

“We: See the enthusiasm to fight the Trump agenda, and want to share insider info on how best to influence Congress to do that.

“You: Want to do your part to beat back the Trump agenda and understand that will require more than calls and petitions.

“You: Should use this guide, share it, amend it, make it your own, and get to work.

“NOTE TO IMMIGRANTS AND NONCITIZENS

“The U.S. Constitution ensures equal representation for all individuals living in the United States, regardless of income, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, or immigration status. Noncitizens, though they may lack the right to vote in federal elections, have the right to have their voices heard by their representatives in Congress.

“This guide is intended to serve as a resource to all individuals who would like to more effectively participate in the democratic process. While we encourage noncitizens to participate to the extent that they are able, individuals should only take actions that they are comfortable taking, and they should consider their particular set of circumstances before engaging in any of these activities.

“Individuals are under no obligation to provide any personally identifiable information to a member of Congress or their staff. Individuals may be asked for their name and zip code, but this is only to confirm that the person is a constituent, and providing this information is strictly voluntary. NO ONE is required to provide any additional information, such as address, social security number, or immigration status.

“SUMMARY

“Here’s the quick-and-dirty summary of this document. While this page summarizes top-level takeaways, the full document describes how to actually carry out these activities.

“CHAPTER 1

“How grassroots advocacy worked to stop President Obama. We examine lessons from the Tea Party’s rise and recommend two key strategic components:

“A local strategy targeting individual Members of Congress (MoCs).

“A defensive approach purely focused on stopping Trump from implementing an agenda built on racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.

“CHAPTER 2

“How your MoC thinks — reelection, reelection, reelection — and how to use that to save democracy. MoCs want their constituents to think well of them, and they want good, local press. They hate surprises, wasted time, and most of all, bad press that makes them look weak, unlikable, and vulnerable. You will use these interests to make them listen and act.

“CHAPTER 3

“Identify or organize your local group. Is there an existing local group or network you can join? Or do you need to start your own? We suggest steps to help mobilize your fellow constituents locally and start organizing for action.

“CHAPTER 4

“Four local advocacy tactics that actually work. Most of you have three MoCs — two Senators and one Representative. Whether you like it or not, they are your voices in Washington. Your job is to make sure they are, in fact, speaking for you. We’ve identified four key opportunity areas that just a handful of local constituents can use to great effect. Always record encounters on video, prepare questions ahead of time, coordinate with your group, and report back to local media:

“Town halls. MoCs regularly hold public in-district events to show that they are listening to constituents. Make them listen to you, and report out when they don’t.

“Other local public events. MoCs love cutting ribbons and kissing babies back home. Don’t let them get photo-ops without questions about racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.

“District office visits. Every MoC has one or several district offices. Go there. Demand a meeting with the MoC. Report to the world if they refuse to listen.

“Coordinated calls. Calls are a light lift, but can have an impact. Organize your local group to barrage your MoCs with calls at an opportune moment about and on a specific issue.

“CHAPTER ONE

“HOW GRASSROOTS ADVOCACY WORKED TO STOP PRESIDENT OBAMA

“If they succeed, or even half succeed, the Tea Party’s most important legacy may be organizational, not political.”
— JONATHAN RAUCH

“Like us, you probably deeply disagree with the principles and positions of the Tea Party. But we can all learn from their success in influencing the national debate and the behavior of national policymakers. To their credit, they thought thoroughly about advocacy tactics, as the leaked “Town Hall Action Memo” demonstrates.

“This chapter draws on both research and our own experiences as former congressional staffers to illustrate the strengths of the Tea Party movement and to provide lessons to leverage in the fight against Trump’s racism, authoritarianism, and corruption.

“THE TEA PARTY’S TWO KEY STRATEGIC CHOICES

“The Tea Party’s success came down to two critical strategic elements:

“WHAT THE TEA PARTY ACCOMPLISHED THE TEA PARTY’S IDEAS WERE WRONG

“The Tea Party organized to end hope for progressive reform under President Obama. Their members: The Tea Party’s ideas were wrong, and their behavior was often horrible.

“Their members:

• Changed votes and defeated legislation • Ignored reality and made up their own facts
• Radically slowed federal policymaking • Threatened anyone they considered an enemy
• Forced Republicans to reject compromise • Physically assaulted and spat on staff
• Shaped national debate over President Obama’s agenda • Shouted obscenities and burned people in effigy
• Paved the way for the Republican takeover in 2010 and Donald Trump today
• Targeted their hate not just at Congress, but also at fellow citizens (especially people of color)

“These were real, tangible results by a group that represented only a small portion of Americans We are better than this. We are the majority, and we don’t need petty scare tactics to win.

“1. They were locally focused. The Tea Party started as an organic movement built on small local groups of dedicated conservatives. Yes, they received some support/coordination from above, but fundamentally all the hubbub was caused by a relatively small number of conservatives working together.

“Groups started as disaffected conservatives talking to each other online. In response to the 2008 bank bailouts and President Obama’s election, groups began forming to discuss their anger and what could be done. They eventually realized that the locally based discussion groups themselves could be a powerful tool.

“Groups were small, local, and dedicated. Tea Party groups could be fewer than 10 people, but they were highly localized, and they dedicated significant personal time and resources. Members communicated with each other regularly, tracked developments in Washington, and coordinated advocacy efforts together.

“Groups were relatively few in number. The Tea Party was not hundreds of thousands of people spending every waking hour focused on advocacy. Rather, the efforts were somewhat modest. Only 1 in 5 self-identified Tea Partiers contributed money or attended events. On any given day in 2009 or 2010, only twenty local events — meetings, trainings, town halls, etc. — were scheduled nationwide. In short, a relatively small number of groups were having a big impact on the national debate.

“2. They were almost purely defensive. The Tea Party focused on saying NO to Members of Congress (MoCs) on their home turf. While the Tea Party activists were united by a core set of shared beliefs, they actively avoided developing their own policy agenda. Instead, they had an extraordinary clarity of purpose, united in opposition to President Obama. They didn’t accept concessions and treated weak Republicans as traitors.

“Groups focused on defense, not policy development. The Tea Party took root in 2009, focused on fighting against every proposal coming out of the new Democratic Administration and Congress. This focus on defense rather than policy development allowed the movement to avoid fracturing. Tea Party members may not have agreed on the policy reforms, but they could agree that Obama, Democrats, and moderate Republicans had to be stopped.

“Groups rejected concessions to Democrats and targeted weak Republicans. Tea Partiers viewed concessions to Democrats as betrayal. This limited their ability to negotiate, but they didn’t care. Instead they focused on scaring congressional Democrats and keeping Republicans honest. As a result, few Republicans spoke against the Tea Party for fear of attracting blowback.

“Groups focused on local congressional representation. Tea Partiers primarily applied this defensive strategy by pressuring their own local MoCs. This meant demanding that their Representatives and Senators be their voice of opposition on Capitol Hill. At a tactical level, the Tea Party had several replicable practices, including:

“Showing up to the MoC’s town hall meetings and demanding answers

“Showing up to the MoC’s office and demanding a meeting

“Coordinating blanket calling of congressional offices at key moments

“USING THESE LESSONS TO FIGHT THE TRUMP AGENDA

“For the next two years, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans will control the federal government. But they will depend on just about every MoC to actually get laws passed. And those MoCs care much more about getting reelected than they care about any specific issue. By adopting a defensive strategy that pressures MoCs, we can achieve the following goals:

“Stall the Trump agenda by forcing them to redirect energy away from their priorities. Congressional offices have limited time and limited people. A day that they spend worrying about you is a day that they’re not ending Medicare, privatizing public schools, or preparing a Muslim registry.

“Sap Representatives’ will to support or drive reactionary change. If you do this right, you will have an outsized impact. Every time your MoC signs on to a bill, takes a position, or makes a statement, a little part of his or her mind will be thinking: “How am I going to explain this to the angry constituents who keep showing up at my events and demanding answers?”

“Reaffirm the illegitimacy of the Trump agenda. The hard truth is that Trump, McConnell, and Ryan will have the votes to cause some damage. But by objecting as loudly and powerfully as possible, and by centering the voices of those who are most affected by their agenda, you can ensure that people understand exactly how bad these laws are from the very start—priming the ground for the 2018 midterms and their repeal when Democrats retake power.
SHOULDN’T WE PUT FORWARD AN ALTERNATE, POSITIVE AGENDA?

“A defensive strategy does not mean dropping your own policy priorities or staying silent on an alternate vision for our country over the next four years. What it means is that, when you’re trying to influence your MoC, you will have the most leverage when you are focused on the current legislative priority.

“You may not like the idea of being purely defensive; we certainly don’t. As progressives, our natural inclination is to talk about the things we’re for—a clean climate, economic justice, health care for all, racial equality, gender and sexual equality, and peace and human rights. These are the things that move us. But the hard truth of the next four years is that we’re not going to set the agenda; Trump and congressional Republicans will, and we’ll have to respond. The best way to stand up for the progressive values and policies we cherish is to stand together, indivisible—to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.”

Please read the rest of the guide. It is written in accessible language and offers sound advice.

Categories Education Reform, Resistance, Trump

There Are a Few “Sane” People Near Trump, But He Doesn’t Listen to Them

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2017 //
19

I am sharing this article from the Washington Post because it confirms what I suspected. Trump picked cabinet members based on whether they looked the part. He wanted his cabinet to look as if they came from Central Casting. Doesn’t Rex Tillerson look like a Secretary of State? Doesn’t Betsy DeVos look like a woman who devoted her life to little children (except for the smirk and the designer suits)?

There are a couple of sane people that somehow got into the mix. Like General McMasters. Trump thinks that the way to defeat ISIS is to say the magic words, “radical Islamic terrorism.” General McMasters thinks it is a bad idea to demonize an entire religion, since we need the help of non-radicals to defeat ISIS. But Trump’s mentor Steve Bannon and his chief speechwriter Stephen Miller don’t agree with General McMasters. So expect to hear more about the war between civilizations. Even George W. Bush is speaking out against Trump’s war on the media and Trump’s war on Islam, but Trump knows his base loves it. Who ever thought we would look back on W. as a model of civility?

Categories Trump

The Mistake that Will Destroy Trump’s Presidency

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2017 //
40

Please watch this video.

The president of the United States wrote for the world to see on Twitter that the major media in the United States are “the enemy of the American people.”

No other president ever uttered or wrote these words.

Could someone please brief Trump on the Constitution and its Amendments to which he swore allegiance?

He has already violated that oath by attacking the free press.

He continuously breaks that oath by disregarding the emoluments clause, which forbids him from taking any payments of any kind from any foreign powers.

Categories Freedom of the Press, Trump

Isabel Rose and Her Daughter Sadie

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2017 //
2

Earlier today, I posted the letter that Isabel Rose wrote to Ivanka Trump about her transgender daughter. It is a powerful and moving letter. It has gone viral. It has been reprinted in many places and today appeared in Harper’s Bazaar with photographs of Isabel, Sadie, her husband Jeff, and her other daughter Lily.

What a wonderful testament to a family’s love!

Categories Resistance, Trump

Glen Ford: DeVos, Trump, Booker, Obama: Enemies of Public Education

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2017 //
51

I am reposting this because I forgot to put in the link. Please listen. It is a lecture so you can listen while driving. I knew the late Michael Joyce of the Bradley Foundation, a very rightwing foundation, and I can confirm that he knowingly manipulated black leaders in Wisconsin to get vouchers passed.

Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda Report, is a fierce critic of corporate education reform. He is equally hard on Democrats and Republicans who have sold out their schools to satisfy rightwing foundations and Wall Street.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/4666

In this post, he lacerates DeVos, Trump, Booker, and Obama
as enemies of public schools, who sold out their community schools to satisfy their funders or (in DeVos’s case) personal ideology.

Here is an excerpt:

“Sometimes, when ruling class competitors collide, the villainy of both factions is made manifest. Donald Trump did the nation’s public schools a great service by nominating Betsy DeVos, the awesomely loathsome billionaire Amway heiress, for secretary of Education. In turning over that rock, Trump exposed the raw corruption and venality at the core of the charter school privatization juggernaut. Only an historic tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence saved DeVos from rejection by the U.S. Senate. Two Republicans abandoned their party’s nominee, joining a solid bloc of Democrats, including New Jersey’s Cory Booker, a school privatizer that crawled out of the same ideological sewer as DeVos and has long been her comrade and ally. Booker defected from his soul mate in fear that the DeVos stench might taint his own presidential ambitions.

“The New York Times editorial board, a champion of charters, bemoaned that DeVos’ “appointment squanders an opportunity to advance public education research, experimentation and standards, to objectively compare traditional public school, charter school and voucher models in search of better options for public school students” – a devious way of saying that the Senate hearings exposed the slimy underbelly of the charter privatization project and the billionaires of both parties that have guided and sustained it.”

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Corruption, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, Obama, Privatization, Trump
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