2017 Medley #1: More Reasons to Reject DoVos

Do You Still Need Reasons to contact your Senators to vote against Betsy DeVos for US Secretary of Education?

The Senate HELP Committee hearings begin on Wednesday, January 11.

When you're ready to contact your Senators click on the image below for Network for Public Education Action.

REASONS

1) Indiana Freshman Senator Todd Young is on the HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) committee which will hold the confirmation hearing on Ms. DeVos on January 11.

Consider this...

Demand that Senators Who Have Received DeVos Money Recuse Themselves

Between 1997 and 2016 the DeVos family contributed at least $283,000 to the Alticor PAC. Alticor is the parent company of Amway, and as we all know...Amway is a DeVos family company.

...Alticor PAC Totals:

Todd Young - $2,000

...The Senate Leadership Fund describes itself as an "independent Super PAC" and claims that its sole goal is "to protect and expand the Republican Senate Majority...This goal seems to have resonated with the DeVos family - they contributed $2,225,000 between 9/27/16 to 11/1/16

...Senate Leadership Fund Totals:

Todd Young - $12,325,017

...Between 2014 and 2016 the DeVos family has contributed over $500,000 to the ESAFund...Todd Young's 2016 campaign received $134,086.68 from ESAFund.

...DeVos Family's Direct Contributions...Todd Young - $48,600 ($5,400 from Betsy DeVos)

~~~

Do you think Todd Young can give an unbiased hearing to Betsy DeVos's qualifications for Secretary of Education?

~~~

2) Listen to a discussion about Betsy DeVos with

• Diane Ravitch, President of NPE, former Assistant Secretary of Education under Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander (George H.W. Bush)

• Lisa Graves, Exec Dir. Center for Media and Democracy

• Tawanna Simpson, Detroit Board of Education

Important quotes from the video, above.

"[She has] devoted her wealth to...attacking the very idea of having universal public education for all students that's truly public." – Lisa Graves

"...she's the most unqualified person ever to be nominated for this..." – Diane Ravitch

"[She] and her family provide lots of money to legislators to make sure...laws go the way they want to have unmandated, unaccountable and corrupt charter schools in our city..." – Tawanna Simpson

"...charter schools come to our traditional public schools and cherry pick the best students. They don't take the students who need the most help because it makes no economic sense...it costs more money to educate students that have...additional educational needs." – Towanna Simpson

"Wall Street is one of the biggest backers of charter schools...there's something called the "New Markets Tax Credit"...they're able to make a tremendous return on their investment in charters because of write-offs on federal taxes..." – Diane Ravitch

"School privatization has been tried in Chile and in Sweden and the results have been very clear. The first and most important product is hyper-segregation, because everybody goes off to be with people just like themselves." – Diane Ravitch

~~~

Do you think that Betsy DeVos represents the interests of the vast majority of America's school children who attend public schools?

~~~

3) Consider this discussion ...

Will Trump and DeVos cripple education?

~~~

Do you think that Betsy DeVos, as the Secretary of Education, would work to improve the education of all American children?

~~~

4) Read How Bad Is DeVos? So Bad..., by Peter Greene

Betsy DeVos has...never been a public school student and never worked as a teacher, administrator or state level education bureaucrat. Betsy DeVos is less qualified than John King [, the current Secretary of Education].

...Betsy DeVos has never run an organization as sprawling and varied as an urban school district, and has no experience with any such educational system. Betsy DeVos is less qualified than Arne Duncan.

...Bottom line-- even if you think that Betsy DeVos is bang-on correct in her education ideas* there is no reason at all to believe that she has any of the tools necessary to succeed as head of the US Department of Education.

Betsy DeVos is supremely unqualified, the most terrible of the terrible choices for Secretary of Education.

~~~

Do you think that the Secretary of Education needs some experience in the field of education before taking office?

~~~

5) Consider these questions written by Russ Walsh for Betsy DeVos to answer before she takes her seat in the office of the Secretary of Education. I've reproduced only one, but they are all important...

Ten Questions for Betsy DeVos

10. In the end, Ms. DeVos, as the person designated to lead the federal Department of Education, overseeing the programs and resources for the 90% of American school children who attend traditional public schools, does a viable system of public education matter to you at all?

~~~

Based on her history, do you think that America's public schools matter to Betsy DeVos?

~~~

6) Read any of the hundreds of articles and blog posts describing how Betsy DeVos has no professional qualifications to do the job for which she has been nominated and has spend her millions tying to damage public schools around the country. Click the link below.

Meet Betsy DeVos: Your New US Secretary of Education

###

From the Network for Public Education – The NPE Toolkit: Stop Betsy DeVos

The more we learn, the more we are certain that Betsy DeVos is bad for public schools and for kids.

When De Vos has to choose between quality schools and “the free market,” she chooses “the free market” of privatized choice every time. The best interests of children take a back seat.

And we know the DeVos endgame–shut down our neighborhood public schools, and replace them with a patchwork of charters, private schools and online learning.

We can’t let that happen and we need your help. Present and future generations of children are depending on us to act now. We now know that some Senators have grave doubts. It is our job to make those doubts grow into active resistance to DeVos. Our senators are in district offices from 12/17 – 1/2.

Here are our three toolkits to help you do your part.

Toolkit 1. Call your senators’ offices. The toolkit with numbers and a phone script can be found here. It includes a link to phone numbers.

Toolkit 2. Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. You can find a model here.

Toolkit 3. Visit your senators’ offices. If you cannot get an appointment, hand deliver a letter. Our toolkit, which you can find here has a model to use, and directions to find local offices. If you cannot hand deliver it, send your letter in the mail.

When you go into the toolkits and commit to an action, we have a simple form that let’s us know what you did. As a thank you, you will receive a special badge for your Facebook page or Twitter account each time you complete an action, and you will be entered into our drawing for a copy of Reign of Error signed by Diane Ravitch.

The drawing will be held on January 5th, so please begin your actions today. Share this link on your Facebook page and Twitter account, or email it to a friend.

We thank you for all that you do. Sadly, our nation’s children need you to do more.

For more go to: The NPE Toolkit: Stop Betsy DeVos

###

Public Education -- Disenfranchised

Which would you choose...the destruction of public education by the federal government, or by the states?

Steve Singer, blogger at gadflyonthewallblog, is justifiably upset that the Democrats in the Senate supported the Murphy Amendment to ESEA, which would have continued the test and punish policies of the Bush/Obama education programs, while most Republicans were against it.

Singer despairs that the world has turned upside down because the Democrats are pushing the federal government sponsored, "test scores mean everything," position, while the Republicans are for getting the feds out of public education.

Peter Greene offered a comment where he agreed...explaining that since No Child Left Behind, test and punish policies have been bipartisan.

This has been increasingly obvious for a while. And it’s worth remembering that No Child Left Behind isn’t really a Bush program, but was hailed as bi-partisan triumph at the time, championed by the old liberal lions like Ted Kennedy. It is in the dark part of Democrat DNA to believe that nothing can be done without making everyone accountable to the federal government.

I suppose the Democrats voted the way they did because they want to believe that tests are the only thing which ensures that there is federal oversight over the civil rights issue of poor children of color who are consistently underserved by urban school districts. They, too, don't want to admit that poverty is the largest issue and that they have been unable to solve the "poverty" issue any better than the Republicans. When nearly 25% of our children live in poverty, and when poverty is the number one out-of-school factor leading to low achievement as determined by test scores, it's easier to blame the schools for the low achievement than to accept responsibility for the rampant poverty in our culture. Even for Democrats.

Standardized tests merely show that students of color and students who live in high poverty areas achieve at lower rates than students in middle class and wealthy areas -- based on those tests. Democrats want the federal government to demand that the schools "do something about it" so that the test scores go up. In his article, The Democrats May Have Just Aligned Themselves With Test and Punish – We Are Doomed, Singer says,

The Democrats seem to be committed to the notion that the only way to tell if a school is doing a good job is by reference to its test scores. High test scores – good school. Bad test scores – bad school.

This is baloney! Test scores show parental income, not academic achievement. Virtually every school with low test scores serves a majority of poor children. Virtually every school with high test scores serves rich kids.

Might it be a question of ignorance? Do Democrats (and Republicans) not understand that poverty is the main out-of-school factor in school achievement? Do they understand it, but simply refuse to believe it? Do they understand it, believe it, but just can't (or won't) do anything about it?

It's probably a combination of all of the above. The fight over the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, however, seems to me to be a fight between the Republicans, who want to end federal involvement in public education, and the Democrats, who don't trust the states to support programs to help children in poverty.

The bad news is that neither the states nor the federal government have fulfilled the promise of Brown vs. Board of Education or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). Neither the states nor the federal government have been able to solve the problem of poverty. Neither the state nor the federal departments of education have been able to find a way to overcome the effects of poverty and increase real achievement.

What Democrats (and the Republicans before them) in the federal Department of Education have done to public education is the same as what Republicans in the Indiana statehouse (and dozens of other states run by Republicans), and Democrats in cities have done to public education...and it's nothing good.

Arne Duncan is no better than Margaret Spellings. Race to the Top is no better than No Child Left Behind. The Privatization of Chicago Public Schools under Democrat Rahm Emanuel is no better than the privatization of New York City Public Schools under Michael Bloomberg. Andrew Cuomo is no better for the public schools and public school teachers and students of New York, than is Rick Scott for Florida or Mike Pence for Indiana.

There are dozens of examples which an unbiased observer would have picked up on over the last 35 years to indicate that there's very little difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to public education.

Peter Greene is correct. The privatization of public schools is a bipartisan issue. The main difference is that Democrats want the federal government to destroy public education...while Republicans want it left up to the states. The result will be the same...privatization will put money into the pockets of  political donors...which will feed more money in campaign treasuries. Meanwhile, public schools will continue to be blamed and punished for a situation which is out of their control.

This is why I am hesitant to trust Democrats in Indiana. I know that Republicans are the ones currently trying to destroy public schools in Indiana, but are Democrats voting the way I want them to vote on public school issues because they truly believe in them, or are they just reacting and voting against anything that the Republicans are for? Similarly, are the Republicans in the US Senate really on "our" side on this, or are they and the Democrats voting on opposite sides just because...?

Singer continues...

Up until now I’ve always been with the Democrats because they had better – though still bad – education policies than the Republicans. I’m not sure I can say that anymore. In fact, it may be just the opposite.

Which party is most committed to ending Common Core? The Republicans!

Which party has championed reducing federal power over our schools and giving us a fighting chance at real education reforms? Republicans!

Which party more often champion’s parental rights over the state? Republicans!

Sure, most of them still love vouchers and charter schools. But increasingly so do the Democrats.

This vote has me rethinking everything.

Our country’s education voters may have just been abandoned by their longest ally.

Where do we go from here?

Public education is, as another commenter on Singer's post put it, disenfranchised. Supporters of public education have no party to go for support in the political process.

The Federal Department of Education was established because states weren't doing the job of providing a free, appropriate, public education for everyone. Federal overreach by the last two administrations has spurred Congress to react and throw public education policy back to the states...where it failed in the first place. Why would we expect the states to do anything different than they did before? Do any public school advocates in Indiana believe that the current state government would end privatization and suddenly support public education? How about North Carolina? New York? Michigan? Ohio? Florida? Nevada? Arizona? Wisconsin?

I would echo Singer's question...

~~~

Support Teachers of Conscience

The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

~~~

Vermont State Board of Education: Statement and Resolution on Assessment and Accountability, Adopted August 19, 2014

~~~

~~~

~~~

Our Children: A Low National Priority

Flight delays are a problem due to the sequester. Travelers have been angry and vocal in their objections. In response, the Senate has approved a fix to allow the FAA to juggle their funds in order to ease some of the delays.

The Maddow Blog commented,

When the sequester started kicking children out of pre-K, Congress did nothing. When this stupid policy denied low-income seniors the benefits of Meals on Wheels, Congress barely noticed. When sequestration cuts put new burdens on cancer patients and cut housing aid to struggling families, most of Congress shrugged its shoulders.

But when business travelers ran into flight delays on Monday, a unanimous Senate approved a fix without breaking a sweat on Thursday.

On this morning's Morning Edition on NPR one reporter said,

Kids in Head Start programs are not going to have the same effect on Congress as angry business travelers.

I'm all in favor of fixing the delays for travelers, but the weakest, most at-risk children in our nation are being ignored. Quite literally, the future adult citizens of our country are being punished for the economic failings of the current adult citizens.

Our nation's children need to be a higher priority.

~~~

Stop the Testing Insanity!

Sign the National Resolution on High Stakes Testing!

~~~

A Shameful Display

Valerie Strauss lists the effect on public education if the congressional supercommittee fails in its task to reach a compromise on lowering the deficit.

How education fares if debt supercommittee fails

There are new reports that the supercommittee is getting ready to admit that its Republican and Democratic members couldn’t compromise after several months of negotiations — this after Congress itself couldn’t reach an agreement.

Legislators should be mighty proud of the terrific lesson they are giving school children everywhere on the subject of democratic government — which can only function with compromise.

Naturally some legislators would prefer to see school budgets cut resulting in the loss of essential programs for millions of children and costing hundreds of thousands of education jobs rather than tax the wealthy at the same rate as the rest of us because they're the "job creators." (Which reminds me...how are they doing on that job creation, thing, anyway?)

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also had some words about this...

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Deficit caused by wars, tax breaks and Wall Street 

“...the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars — unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on backs of the elderly, the sick, the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”

It's wrong. It's selfish. It's shameful.

9/11 Responders Wait for Senate

Today's Subject: Politics, not education.

The House of Representatives has already passed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010. It provides health care funds for 9/11 first responders and emergency workers who have developed medical problems due to their work at Ground Zero.

The bill, however, is stalled in the Senate by a filibuster.

Think Progress has a clip from the Daily Show, which normally presents a humorous/satirical view of the news. Jon Stewart gathered a panel of four 9/11 first responders, all with serious and life threatening health problems. These four men are among those who were acclaimed as heroes after 9/11. These men are among those who were hailed by politicians from both sides of the political spectrum as the best we have in America. These men are among those who carried people to safety and then sifted through the rubble in the aftermath. These men are among those who are being denied coverage for their 9/11 related illnesses.

One member of the panel, Kenny Speck, a New York City Fire Fighter, said, "It just goes to show the disconnect between those we elect to represent us, and those who get out there and do the work."

Watch it here. Scroll down to the video clip when you get there...

~~~