Public School System Charged with Fraud: Guilty or Not Guilty? | Cloaking Inequity

Public School System Charged with Fraud: Guilty or Not Guilty? | Cloaking Inequity

PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM CHARGED WITH FRAUD: GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?

Viva Las Vegas! I was asked by FreedomFest to participate in Las Vegas as an expert witness for the defense in their upcoming event “Public School System on Trial.” FreedomFest is a gathering of about 2,000 Libertarian-minded folk. The event is well-known for its annual “mock trial.” The “trial” takes on an important issue and looks at it from all sides, with a judge, star witnesses, defense and prosecuting attorneys. The jury is made up of FreedomFest attendees. Here is selection of issues on trial from past years:

• Religion
• Foreign Policy
• the Fed
• Climate Change
• the Police
• Wall Street
• the Republican Party

Here is what FreedomFest says about the Education mock trial.

The concept of public schooling in the United States has been around for a long time. As early as the 1600s, communities created structures of required and free public education and schooling. It wasn’t until the 1800s that the public school system really took shape in the United States.

Since that time, public schools have had a mixed reputation. For some, the local public school is a symbol of civic pride, community, service and progress. But in other ways, the public school system has instituted segregation, inequality, even corruption.

What is the state of our public school system today? With the emergence of common core, national standards, increasing taxes, school shootings, depleting test scores, standardized tests, diminishing arts, recess and physical education, is the public school system HELPING or HURTING our efforts to educate our children and improve our society?

And even more important, is the public school system even doing what it claims is it’s purpose? Is it EDUCATING our children or actually DEFRAUDING the American public?

In our famous mock trial this year, we’ll bring together top-notch experts in the public school system to charge the system with its shortcomings and also defend it from its detractors.

Who is right? What’s the answer for the future of American public education? The school system as it is now? Or something VERY different?

You’ll be there for the historic discussion. And you’ll get to weigh in! We’ll take YOUR vote at the end to see who wins the case.

The graphic they gave me:

‪Join me at #TheFreedomFest 2018 where I'll speak in defense of Public education in the Mock Trial. Use code VOICE100 to get $100 off your registration before 6/30! www.freedomfest.com @TheFreedomFest

A post shared by Julian Vasquez Heilig (@professorjvh) on Jun 14, 2018 at 2:57pm PDT

Continue Reading: Public School System Charged with Fraud: Guilty or Not Guilty? | Cloaking Inequity

We need to protect the Department of Education

We need to protect the Department of Education

Education unfits us for slavery; we need to protect the Department of Education
The new White House proposal to merge the Departments of Education and Labor views students only as workers

While the world was focused on the horrific Trump administration policy of family separation, they were pushing other awful proposals through. While we rubbernecked at the “zero tolerance” immigration policies that have undoubtedly caused trauma to children separated from their families, last week, the White House released a 132-page proposal to restructure the federal government. It calls into question “how well the current organizational constructs of Government are aligned to meet Americans’ needs in the digital age.” Headlining this proposal is a plan to merge the Departments of Education and Labor into a single federal agency, the Department of Education and the Workforce.

The notion of a governmental reboot seems fair enough. Government bureaucracies that grow over time can be anathema to innovation and efficiency. Technology has challenged the way we engage with all institutions, and the federal government could certainly improve its use of technology to better deliver services.

However, the chief problem in this country has been our nefarious desire to link education and labor — at times with chains. We don’t need a federal agency to concretize the connection.

Some parts of the plan seem reasonable enough. For instance, splitting the responsibilities of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — Civil Works, which does water resource and flood risk management, and moving it out of the Department of Defense and into the Departments of Transportation and the Interior But education deserves more attention than this plan would allow. In addition, there are many agencies that intersect and interact with education, such as Health and Human Services, which manages the federal Head Start pre-school program, part of the DOE’s push for quality early learning, and Housing and Urban Development, which coordinates with HHS and the DOE to help homeless children get those early learning services.

The reality is that the Departments of Education and Labor are big enough and important enough to be standalone agencies. Unschooled reductions in government and reflexive conservatism Continue reading: We need to protect the Department of Education