DeVos Targets $180 Million in State CARES Act Public School Relief Funds to School Choice and Virtual Schools | janresseger

DeVos Targets $180 Million in State CARES Act Public School Relief Funds to School Choice and Virtual Schools | janresseger

DeVos Targets $180 Million in State CARES Act Public School Relief Funds to School Choice and Virtual Schools

Big Education Ape: Tell Congress: Stop DeVos from using emergency funding to advance her privatization agenda - Network For Public Education - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2020/04/tell-congress-stop-devos-from-using.html

Last Monday, in the same week The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities announced New CBO Projections Suggest Even Bigger State Shortfalls, Betsy DeVos launched a new grant competition made up of coronavirus (CARES Act) relief money to lure states into enacting her own school privatization priorities, something Congress has persistently blocked.  Most of us instead would like to see our states use federal CARES Act money to avoid the kind of massive layoffs of public school teachers being predicted by the Learning Policy Institute to ensure that class sizes remain reasonable when school reopens.  And we’d like to be sure that our schools won’t lay off more counselors, nurses, librarians and music and art teachers.

Congress allocated some of the money in the CARES (coronavirus relief) Act to help states maintain public school funding during what we all know is coming: a state budget crisis as sales and income tax revenues collapse because businesses are shutting down and many people are losing their jobs.  Now, Chalkbeat’s Matt Barnum reports: Betsy DeVos has set aside some of this money (1) for states to give parents  microgrants for parents to pay for access to remote learning, (2) for states to invest in virtual schools, and (3) for states to create models for as yet unimagined remote education possibilities.

The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss explains exactly which money Betsy DeVos plans to spend on these microgrants for parents’ online access, for states establishing of new virtual schools, and some kind of unspecified new “innovation” strategies for remote learning: “Congress allocated $30.75 billion in its recent coronavirus relief legislation to help states, K-12 school districts and higher education systems respond to the pandemic… Within that fund, it set aside $308 million in emergency education relief ‘for grants to states with the highest coronavirus burden.’  DeVos is using $180 million of that money for her ‘Rethink K-12 Education Models Grant’ program that invites states to find ‘new innovative ways for students to access K-12 education.”

Despite that the U.S. Department of Education exists for the purpose of providing CONTINUE READING: DeVos Targets $180 Million in State CARES Act Public School Relief Funds to School Choice and Virtual Schools | janresseger