Archives for category: U.S. Department of Education
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Jan Resseger: How the Federal Charter School Program Defunds Public Schools and Cheats Taxpayers

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2019 //
6

Jan Resseger has another brilliant article about the charter school strategy of privatization paid for by federal funding. 

Betsy DeVos wants to cut most of the programs in the Department of Education but has asked for an increase of charter school funding, from $440 million to $500 million a year. This year she used that funding to give $82 million to KIPP and $116 million to the IDEA charter chain, which is known for high attrition rates.

She cites an article by Jeff Bryant, a co-author of the NPE study of the federal Charter School Program, which concluded that about one of three charter schools funded by the federal government never opens or closes soon after opening. In some states, the failed charters were even more than 1/3.

In Michigan, 42 percent of the federal dollars granted by CSP were wasted on schools that never opened or subsequently closed. The percentage of failure was similar in Ohio (40 percent), Louisiana (46 percent), California (38 percent), and Florida (36 percent).

Resseger notes that Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat wonders whether the size of the grants to KIPP and IDEA, not mom-and-pop charters to be sure, will fuel the growing backlash to privatization by charters.

Resseger makes clear that charters damage public schools by defunding them.

The effect of charter school expansion is a serious threat to the finances of traditional public school districts. When students leave a public school system to attend a charter school they carry away money from the school district’s budget. There are charter promoters who allege that, because the exiting students no longer require the services public school districts are providing, the fiscal impact is neutral.  However, the political economist, Gordon Lafer counters this argument forcefully in a report published a year ago by In the Public Interest: “To the casual observer, it may not be obvious why charter schools should create any net costs at all for their home districts. To grasp why they do, it is necessary to understand the structural differences between the challenge of operating a single school—or even a local chain of schools—and that of a district-wide system operating tens or hundreds of schools and charged with the legal responsibility to serve all students in the community.  When a new charter school opens, it typically fills its classrooms by drawing students away from existing schools in the district. By California state law, school funding is based on student attendance; when a student moves from a traditional public school to a charter school, her pro-rated share of school funding follows her to the new school. Thus, the expansion of charter schools necessarily entails lost funding for traditional public schools and school districts. If schools and district offices could simply reduce their own expenses in proportion to the lost revenue, there would be no fiscal shortfall. Unfortunately this is not the case.”

Lafer continues, detailing the costs public school districts cannot immediately cut when students leave for charter schools: “If, for instance, a given school loses five percent of its student body—and that loss is spread across multiple grade levels, the school may be unable to lay off even a single teacher… Plus, the costs of maintaining school buildings cannot be reduced…. Unless the enrollment falloff is so steep as to force school closures, the expense of heating and cooling schools, running cafeterias, maintaining digital and wireless technologies, and paving parking lots—all of this is unchanged by modest declines in enrollment. In addition, both individual schools and school districts bear significant administrative responsibilities that cannot be cut in response to falling enrollment. These include planning bus routes and operating transportation systems; developing and auditing budgets; managing teacher training and employee benefits; applying for grants and certifying compliance with federal and state regulations; and the everyday work of principals, librarians and guidance counselors.” “If a school district anywhere in the country—in the absence of charter schools—announced that it wanted to create a second system-within-a-system, with a new set of schools whose number, size, specialization, budget, and geographic locations would not be coordinated with the existing school system, we would regard this as the poster child of government inefficiency and a waste of tax dollars. But this is indeed how the charter school system functions.”

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Jan Resseger: Time to Close Down the Federal Charter Schools Program

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2019 //
17

 

Jan Resseger is a voice of moral clarity in a time of moral turpitude.she reflected on the NPE report “Asleep At the Wheel,” about the slipshod, failed federal program to pump money into the charter industry and concluded the program should be terminated, with the money transferred to high-needs schools. 

She writes:

“The Network for Public Education published its scathing report on the federal Charter Schools Program three weeks ago, but as time passes, I continue to reflect on its conclusions. The report, Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride, is packed with details about failed or closed or never-opened charter schools.  The Network for Public Education depicts a program driven by neoliberal politicians hoping to spark innovation in a marketplace of unregulated startups underwritten by the federal government. The record of this 25 year federal program is dismal.

“Here is what the Network for Public Education’s report shows us. The federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) has awarded $4 billion federal tax dollars to start or expand charter schools across 44 states and the District of Columbia, and has provided some of the funding for 40 percent of all the charter schools that have been started across the country. Begun when Bill Clinton was President, this neoliberal—publicly funded, privatized—program has been supported by Democratic and Republican administrations alike.  It has lacked oversight since the beginning, and during the Obama and Trump administrations—when the Department of Education’s own Office of Inspector General released a series of scathing critiques of the program—grants have been made based on the application alone with little attempt by officials in the Department of Education to verify the information provided by applicants.  Hundreds of millions of dollars have been awarded to schools that never opened or that were shut down: “We found that it is likely that as many as one third of all charter schools receiving CSP grants never opened, or opened and shut down.”  Many grants went to schools that illegally discriminated in some way to choose their students and served far fewer disabled students and English language learners than the local pubic schools.  Many of the CSP-funded charter schools were plagued by conflicts of interest profiteering, and mismanagement. The Department of Education has never investigated the scathing critiques of the program by the Department’s Office of Inspector Genera; neither has the Department of Education investigated the oversight practices of the state-by-state departments of education, called State Education Agencies by CSP, to which many of the grants were made. Oversight has declined under the Department’s leadership by Betsy DeVos.

“One of the shocking findings in the Asleep at the Wheel report is that a series of federal administrations—Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump have treated this program as a kind of venture capital fund created and administered to stimulate social entrepreneurship—by individuals or big nonprofits or huge for-profits—as a substitute for public operation of the public schools. This use of the Charter Schools Program as a source for venture capital is especially shocking in the past decade under Presidents Obama and Trump, even as federal funding for essential public school programs has fallen. The Center on Budget and Policy priorities reports, for example, that public Title I formula funding dropped by 6.2 percent between 2008 and 2017.”

Betsy DeVos defended the high failure rate by saying that in the business world, some start-ups fail. Why is the federal government using education money to invest in start-ups? Why shouldn’t the federal government review the applications carefully before awarding millions of dollars? What bank will lend you money without carefully reviewing your proposal and financials? Since 1994, this program has been a giant cookie jar, filled with free money.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Reform, For-Profit, Fraud, U.S. Department of Education

Burris and Ravitch: An Open Letter to Betsy DeVos about the Failure of the Federal Charter Schools Program

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2019 //
8

 

In this post on Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet blog at the Washington Post, Carol Burris and I respond to Betsy DeVos’s putdown of the Network for Public Education’s meticulous documentation of the failure of the federal Charter Schools Program. Our report, “Asleep at the Wheel,” showed that the U.S. Department of Education had handed out hundreds of millions of dollars–close to a billion dollars–between 2006 and 2014, to nearly 1,000 charter schools that never opened or that closed soon after opening. DeVos, as you will see, dismissed the report out of hand, and we assume that she never read it. The report was carefully documented, with references drawn mainly from government sources, including the website of the U.S. Department of Education. And for an added bonus, we show that 42% of all charter schools in DeVos’s home state of Michigan that received federal funding either never opened or closed soon after opening. What will she do to correct the lack of oversight in her own department?

We write:

Here is a link to 109 Michigan charter schools, called “academies,” that were awarded Charter School Program (CSP) grants from 2006-2014 but either never opened or closed. That number represents 42 percent of all recipients. Those highlighted in maroon shut down. Those highlighted in tan are schools that received funds but never opened. You will find ample documentation for your staff to review our work.

As anxious as you are to open new charter schools, if nearly half of them do not make it, we suggest that something is wrong with the selection process.

In total, $20,272,078 was awarded to defunct Michigan charter schools. And yet, in 2018 you awarded the State of Michigan an additional $47,222,222.

Your home state is not alone. Posted here is a similar list from the state of Ohio showing the names of 117 charter schools (40 percent) that received CSP funds between 2006-2014 that also never opened or are now closed. The total of CSP awards to those schools is $35,926,693. Please note that in all of these states, far more charter schools have failed than just those that received federal SEA funds. In the case of Ohio, the list of closed charters (293) is nearly equal to the number of schools that are presently open (310).

Dare I say that the U.S. Department was scammed because of its own negligence?

Read on.

There is more about Louisiana, California, and other states.

We are talking here about our taxpayer dollars. There are needy schools in the U.S. Yet the Department of Education squanders money on failed and failing charter schools. This must stop!

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Hoax, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Betsy DeVos and Payday for the Charter Industry!

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2019 //
11

 

No matter how many scandals and frauds are exposed in the charter industry, the federal money keeps rolling in.

Open this link to see which of your favorite charter chains (the Walmarts of education) won millions from their friend Betsy DeVos.

Eva got $9.8 million from her friend Betsy.

KIPP will secure a total of $86 million over five years for its San Francisco operations.

IDEA in Texas scores $116 million over five years!

Despite the report from the Network for Public Education showing that 1/3 of the grants by the federal Charter Schools Program are awarded to schools that never open or that close soon after opening, the money keeps flowing.

No matter how many reports of charter fraud, waste, and malfeasance, the federal dollars keep flowing.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Bernie Sanders’ Staff Called Me to Talk About Education Policy

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2019 //
186

 

I got an e-mail recently from Senator Bernie Sanders’s education advisor. She said she reads the blog and wondered if we could talk. I said sure but I was not ready to endorse anyone in the Democratic primaries.

I asked for and got her permission to share that this conversation occurred. As everyone knows who ever gave me confidential information, I never write or speak about what I was told in confidence.

We set a date to speak on the phone since I am in New York and she is in D.C.

She called and conferenced in the campaign’s chief of staff.

Here is what happened.

I told them that I was upset that Democrats talk about pre-K and college costs—important but safe topics—and skip K-12, as though it doesn’t exist. Every poll I get from Democrats asks me which issues matter most but doesn’t mention K-12.

I expressed my hope that Bernie would recognize that charter schools are privately managed (in 2016, he said in a town hall that he supports “public charter schools but not private charter schools). No matter what they call themselves, they are not “public” schools. They are all privately managed. I recounted for them the sources of financial support for charters: Wall Street, hedge fund managers, billionaires, the DeVos family, the Waltons, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, ALEC, and of course, the federal government, which gave $440 million to charters this year, one-third of which will never open or close soon after opening. (See “Asleep At the Wheel: How Athens Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride,” Network for Public Education).

I proposed a way to encourage states to increase funding for teachers’ salaries. I won’t reveal it now. I think it is an amazingly innovative concept that offers money to states without mandates but assures that the end result would be significant investment by states in teacher compensation, across the board, untethered to test scores.

I recommended a repeal of the annual testing in grades 3-8, a leftover of George W. Bush’s failed No Child Left Behind. I pointed out to them that all the Democrats on the Education Committee in the Senate had voted for the Murphy Amendment (sponsored by Senator Chris Murphy of Ct), which would have preserved all the original punishments of NCLB but which was fortunately voted down by Republicans. I suggested that grade span testing is common in other developed countries, I.e., once in elementary school, once in middle school, once in high school.

We had a lively conversation. Our values are closely aligned.

They are in it to win it. I will watch to see if Bernie moves forward with a progressive K-12 plan. No one else has.

My options are open. My priorities are clear.

Let’s draw a line in the sand. We will not support any candidate for the Democratic nomination unless he or she comes out with strong policy proposals that strengthen public schools, protect the civil rights of all students, curb federal overreach into curriculum and assessment and teacher evaluation, and oppose DeVos-style privatization (vouchers, charters, cybercharters, for-profit charters, home schooling, for-profit higher education).

Silence is not a policy.

Democrats support public schools.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Sanders, School Choice, Teacher Pay, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Jeff Bryant: What is the U.S. Department of Education Hiding?

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2019 //
5

Jeff Bryant was co-author, with NPE executive director Carol Burris, of the report “Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride.” In this post, he asks why the U.S. Department of Education can’t answer three straightforward questions. 

The DeVos Department of Education stonewalled his questions, giving no answers.

This non-response, he notes, was not unique to DeVos. Arne Duncan’s ED was equally non-responsive when questioned by previous researchers in search of answers in 2015.

Bryant wanted to know whether the Department had made any changes following the report of the Center for Media and Democracy, which had also criticized the non-existent standards used when judging applications for federal funding of charter schools.

So he asked these questions on March 8:

This is to inquire about the current grant application review process used for the Charter Schools Program Grants to State Entities. Specifically, in 2015, the Department published an “Overview of the 2015 CSP SEA Review Process.” My questions:

  1. Can you provide a similar document describing how the grant review process is currently being conducted for the Charter Schools Program Grants to State Entities?
  2. If not, can you briefly comment on how the grant review process used for the Charter Schools Program Grants to State Entities aligns with or varies from the Overview referenced above?
  3. Regarding a “Dear Colleague”letter sent to State Education Agencies in 2015 emphasizing the importance of financial accountability for charter schools receiving federal dollars, was there any follow-up by the Charter School Program to ascertain how many SEAs complied with this request and what was the nature of the new systems and processes put into place by SEAs to provide for greater accountability?

He got a voicemail from a communications officer and returned her call. She chastised him and told him he was creating “havoc” among the staff.

The NPE report that Bryant co-authored appeared at the same time that members of the House Appropriations Committee were grilling Secretary DeVos about her budget proposals, which included steep cuts in many programs but an increase for the scandal-ridden Charter Schools Program.

Bryant recounts what happened at the hearings:

When Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin, asked DeVos what was being done to recover the $1 billion in alleged financial mismanagement involving charters, DeVos said she “would look into the matter.”

On the issue of how a federal agency could allow charter operators to rip off American taxpayers with impunity, and generally suffer no adverse consequences for their acts, DeVos acknowledged that waste and fraud in the charter grant program had been around for “some time.”

That much is true.

It was under Arne Duncan’s watch that the federal charter grants program was greatly expanded, states were required to lift caps on the numbers of charter schools in order to receive precious federal dollars, and the administration Duncan served in insulted public school teachers by proclaiming National Charter School Week on dates identical to what had always been observed as Teacher Appreciation Week.

And most of the wanton charter fraud we detailed in our report that ran rampant during the Duncan years is now simply continuing under DeVos, with little to no explanation of why this is allowed to occur.

Isn’t it interesting how the U.S. Department of Education demands accountability from schools and districts and states, but provides no accountability whatever for its own incompetence.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Betsy DeVos: “Cut My Department’s Budget, Please!”

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2019 //
23

 

Usually, members of the President’s Cabinet go before Congress to defend their department’s budget and to explain the good works the department is doing.

Not Secretary DeVos! She went to a Congressional heading to ask the Appropriations Committee to cut her budget.

Much has been made of her plea to zero out federal support for the Special Olympics, which backfired. Not only were the families of 272,000 participants offended but so were the families of many millions of people with disabilities. Trump quickly res indeed the cut, which was a tiny sliver of the ED budget, equivalent to six weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago by Trump.

Many more programs were jeopardized, as Denis Smith writes here.

“In her testimony before the House Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday, Betsy DeVos, the anti-public education Secretary of Education, was present to defend $7 billion in proposed cuts to her department. The cuts in the education budget are seen as measures to offset billions in lost revenue from tax breaks for the wealthy that have exploded the federal deficit.

“An examination of Trump’s FY2020 budget shows that the administration is asking to cut the Department of Education’s funding from $71 billion to $64 billion, eliminating 29 programs. In addition to zeroing out popular and proven programs like Special Olympics, which has garnered strong support during its 50-year existence, Pell Grants for higher education tuition assistance, literacy and after-school programs would also be adversely affected by new budget statements.

“Broadcast and print media were all over the story about a cabinet secretary who was as heartless as Genghis Kahn in laying waste to her department’s budget so that money could be freed up for other purposes. The one area that stood out the most was the elimination of $18 million in federal funds for Special Olympics and the added support the program provides for students with special needs….

”The Secretary’s propensity for cluelessness is seen in defending a budget that harms so many children with program cuts yet reserves a huge amount of public funds for charter schools, many of which are run by for-profit management companies. Her advocacy for increased funding for charter schools at a time when massive cuts are proposed for children with special needs is appalling, and when the Department of Education’s own inspector general examined the efficacy of the Charter Schools Program for state education agencies, where federal start-up grant funds are available to establish new charter schools…

”If there was any value in the Education Subcommittee hearing, it is that all should know without any doubt where the priorities of Republicans are in the area of education. Forget about kids and learning. Forget about being civic-minded and making investments in the community through public education. Instead, profit must be the result. In this model promoted by Republican budget priorities, students come in third behind profit/shareholder value and executive compensation for the for-profit school leaders. In this alternative universe, it’s all about people who look at market activity and portfolios and concern themselves with calculating yield on investment.”

The bottom line: Greed is good.

Fortunately, the Democrats who control the Appropriations Committee will not approve any of DeVos’s proposed cuts. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut is chair of the Education subcommittee. She questioned DeVos closely. DeVos will not get anything past DeLauro, a champion for children and public schools.

 

Categories Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, U.S. Department of Education

Bombshell Report: Congress Wastes Nearly $1 Billion on Defunct Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
March 26, 2019 //
23

 

The Network for Public Education released a shocking report about waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal charter school program. 

This year, Congress handed out $440 million to charter schools, many of which will never open or quickly close. Trump and DeVos want to increase the annual sum to $500 million.

The Washington Post covered the findings. Valerie Strauss writes:

”The U.S. government has wasted up to $1 billion on charter schools that never opened, or opened and then closed because of mismanagement and other reasons, according to a report from an education advocacy group. The study also says the U.S. Education Department does not adequately monitor how its grant money is spent.

“The report, titled “Asleep at the Wheel” and issued by the nonprofit advocacy group Network for Public Education, says:

  • More than 1,000 grants were given to schools that never opened, or later closed because of mismanagement, poor performance, lack of enrollment or fraud. “Of the schools awarded grants directlyfrom the department between 2009 and 2016, nearly one in four either never opened or shut its doors,” it says.
  • Some grants in the 25-year-old federal Charter School Program (CSP) have been awarded to charters that set barriers to enrollment of certain students. Thirty-four California charter schools that received grants appear on an American Civil Liberties Union list of charters “that discriminate — in some cases illegally — in admissions.”
  • The department’s grant approval process for charters has been sorely lacking, with “no attempt to verify the information presented” by applicants.
  • The Education Department in Republican and Democratic administrations has “largely ignored or not sufficiently addressed” recommendations to improve the program made by its own inspector general.

“Our investigation finds the U.S. Department of Education has not been a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars in its management of the CSP,” it says.”

Carol Burris, executive director of NPE, is briefing key members of Congress today about this wasteful program.

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Fraud, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education

Trump Budget Would Cut Education Programs by 10%, While Expanding $$ for Vouchers, Charters

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2019 //
19

Education Week describes Trump’s proposed cuts for programs in the U.S. Department of Education. Trump proposes eliminating 29 federal education programs while maintaining level funding for Title 1 and Special Education. The key quote in this article is the one from Secretary DeVos, who says the budget is about “education freedom,” by which she means, “So long, you are on your own, don’t expect the feds to help you.” The administration proposes $5 billion for vouchers and an increase in the federal charter school program to $500 million. It is not clear why the federal government needs to spend any money to start charter schools, since this project is now well covered by the Waltons, the Koch brothers, the DeVos family foundations, Michael Bloomberg, the Broad Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Arnold Foundation, the Fisher Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the NewSchools Venture, the Charter School Growth Fund, and others too numerous to mention.

 

President Donald Trump is seeking a 10 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget in his fiscal 2020 budget proposal, which would cut the department’s spending by $7.1 billion down to $64 billion starting in October.

Funding for teacher development under Title II, totaling $2.1 billion, would be eliminated, as would $1.2 billion in Title IV funding for academic supports and enrichment and $1.1 billion for 21st Century Community Learning Centers that support after-school programs. In total, funding for 29 programs would be eliminated in the federal budget. 

On the other side of the ledger, Trump’s budget blueprint calls for $500 million for federal charter school grants, a $60 million increase from current funding levels. The president also wants $200 million for the School Safety National Activities program, which would more than double the program’s $95 million in current funding—of that amount, $100 million would be used to fund a new School Safety State Formula Grant program. There are no requirements for the grant program related to firearms, according to the Education Department. And the office for civil rights would get $125 million, the same as current funding.

On the school choice front, the department says its main proposal has already been introduced: a federal tax-credit scholarship program from Republicans. The Treasury Department’s budget proposal includes $5 billion for the cost of such a program. 

Meanwhile, the Education Innovation and Research fund would be funded at $300 million, a $170 million increase from fiscal 2019. Of that amount, $200 million would “test the impact of teacher professional development vouchers,” according to a presentation from the Education Department, while $100 million would go toward innovative STEM grants. In addition, the Trump budget would provide $50 million for a pilot program under Title I to help districts create and use weighted student-funding formulas—this pilot program was created under the Every Student Succeeds Actin order to help schools focus money directly on disadvantaged students and those with special needs. Funding for the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarships Program, which provides vouchers to students in the nation’s capital, would increase to $30 million. 

Title I funding for disadvantaged students, the single-largest federal funding program for public schools, remains flat at $15.9 billion in Trump’s budget pitch. Special education grants to states would also be level-funded at $13.2 billion. Also flat-funded are the English Language Acquisition formula grants at $737.4 million. 

“This budget at its core is about education freedom—freedom for America’s students to pursue their life-long learning journeys in the ways and places that work best for them, freedom for teachers to develop their talents and pursue their passions, and freedom from the top-down ‘Washington knows best’ approach that has proven ineffective and even harmful to students,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in a statement about the budget proposal.

On a Monday conference call with reporters, Jim Blew, the assistant secretary for planning, evaluation, and policy development, acknowledged that Congress and the Trump administration have not been synced up in terms of education spending priorities. 

“The administration believes that we need to reduce the amount of discretionary funding for the education,” Blew said. “That is based on the desire to have some fiscal discipline and address some higher-priority needs.”

Blew indicated that the priorities should be the disadvantaged children and students with disabilities. 

For more details on Trump’s fiscal 2020 proposal for the Education Department, click here. And check out our chart below to see the effects Trump’s budget request would have on different programs.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Funding, Privatization, U.S. Department of Education, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: The Real Reason DeVos Tried to Fire the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2019 //
11

The Inspector General in every federal department is supposed to be an independent watchdog, a maintainer of high ethical standards and legal propriety.

Betsy DeVos tried to fire the ED Inspector General, and it didn’t go well.

Jan Resseger explains what happened here.

Now, however, it turns out that DeVos’s motive for trying to fire Sandra Bruce was far more suspicious than just an attempt to hire someone who would protect the pet projects of the Department. It looks as though DeVos tried to fire Sandra Bruce because, as part of her job as Inspector General, Bruce was investigating DeVos’s reinstatement last November of Departmental approval for a shady accrediting agency of for-profit colleges, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). Late in 2015, The Obama Department of Education had removed approval of ACICS as a federal accreditor of for-profit colleges.

As usual, Resseger gets to the heart of the matter.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Ethics, For-Profit, U.S. Department of Education
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »