Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them? | janresseger

Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them? | janresseger

Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them?

While the Republican Party announced the themes of the Republican Convention—“Monday is ‘Land of Promise,’ Tuesday is ‘Land of Opportunity,’ Wednesday is ‘Land of Heroes’ and Thursday is ‘Land of Greatness.'”—the Convention instead dramatized a very old theme: the difference between appearance and reality.  Producers, including people from The Apprentice, put together a spectacular show draped in flags. Their purpose: to distract, distort, and dissemble.

The Convention hardly touched on education policy. But last night in his acceptance speech, the President claimed he will “expand charter schools and provide school choice for every family in America.” Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. Tim Scott, (R-SC) also extolled school choice as the future of education, even as, ironically, President Trump himself and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are demanding that the nation’s 90,000 public schools reopen as the only path to getting America’s parents back to work. Trump and DeVos certainly haven’t been counting on their favorite patchwork of charter schools and private schools to accomplish their systemic goal. The convention’s primary education speaker, Rebecca Friedrichs, the lead plaintiff in an anti-teachers union case called Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, not surprisingly, attacked teachers unions. Although she claimed that the unions “are subverting our republic, so they undermine educational excellence, morality, law and order,” you will remember that instead a wave of #Red4Ed strikes during 2018-2019 pushed states like West Virginia and Oklahoma to increase school funding at least a little bit and forced Los Angeles, Oakland, and Chicago to address unreasonable conditions including class sizes of 40 students and a dearth of school counselors in public schools serving concentrations of our nation’s poorest students.

While the Republicans held their convention, Betsy DeVos herself wasn’t having such a good week. She was left off the Convention agenda, and on Tuesday, the Savannah Morning News reported that she visited a reopened public school in Forsyth County, Georgia, where she made CONTINUE READING: Second Judge Blocks Flow of CARES Act Dollars to Private Schools. Will Public Schools Ever See the Money Congress Intended for Them? | janresseger

Betsy DeVos & the Death of the GOP | The Merrow Report

Betsy DeVos & the Death of the GOP | The Merrow Report

Betsy DeVos & the Death of the GOP

If you weren’t already convinced that the Republican Party was Donald Trump’s personal property, the 2020 Republican National Convention demonstrated that–lock, stock & barrel–the party of Dwight Eisenhower, John McCain, the two Bush presidents, Ronald Reagan, and Abraham Lincoln no longer exists.

How did this happen?  Will historians be able to point to a moment in time when Trump, a classic bully, might have been stopped if the GOP had stood up to him, instead of appeasing him? 

Historians generally agree that, when Western powers failed to stand up to Hitler after his annexation of Czechoslovakia, the die was cast.  “Peace for Our Time” was promised by Chamberlain in his and Hitler’s Munich Agreement of September, 1938, but as we know World War II soon followed.   While there were earlier events (such as The Night of the Long Knives in 1934) where strong responses to Hitler’s bullying and posturing might have forced him to back down, most see the Munich appeasement as the point of no return.

The House and Senate are a co-equal branch of government with the Constitutional responsibility for ‘advice and consent‘ on Presidential appointments and foreign treaties.  Under Republican control, they had numerous opportunities to assert their prerogatives after Trump’s election in November, 2016, but I believe the Senate’s CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos & the Death of the GOP | The Merrow Report

Trump Brags About Racist Housing and Education Policies and Urges Americans to “Enjoy!” | janresseger

Trump Brags About Racist Housing and Education Policies and Urges Americans to “Enjoy!” | janresseger

Trump Brags About Racist Housing and Education Policies and Urges Americans to “Enjoy!”

In desperation, as polls predict he is likely to lose in the November election, President Donald Trump has not only threatened to defund the post office for the purpose of ensuring that a lot of votes won’t be counted, but he has also, shockingly, been appealing to racism.  He tweeted:

“I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood… Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down.  I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!”

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson explains the meaning of Trump’s tweet and refreshes our memories about the AFFH Rule: “Trump tweeted what may be the most nakedly racist appeal to White voters that I’ve seen since the days of segregationist state leaders such as Alabama’s George Wallace and Georgia’s Lester Maddox… Many people probably don’t know what the ‘Obama-Biden AFFH Rule’ is, but its roots are in the 1968 Fair Housing Act, specifically its Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing provision. That section of the law required federal agencies that deal with housing and banking to pursue their missions in a way that would actively desegregate housing.  In 2015, the Obama administration spelled out how communities should measure their progress, or lack thereof, in eliminating housing bias, and tied federal funding for housing and urban development to those measurements. Trump’s tweet is a promise not to actively enforce that provision. And it’s a message to White people that they can go ahead and do whatever they feel is necessary to keep Black people and Latinos from moving into their neighborhoods.”

Of course, Trump does not explicitly name race in his abhorrent tweet and he doesn’t mention segregation in the public schools.  In this one tweet, however, the President is explicitly CONTINUE READING: Trump Brags About Racist Housing and Education Policies and Urges Americans to “Enjoy!” | janresseger

Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election | Live Long and Prosper

Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election | Live Long and Prosper

Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election

The following information and letter is from the Schools Matter blog by Jim Horn (not to be confused with the School Matters blog by Steve Hinnefeld). I have made some changes to correct typos and errors. Please feel free to personalize and edit the letter below. Let’s make sure that all members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents wake up tomorrow morning to full in-boxes!!

Today’s Action to Save the PO and the Election

Please feel free to use the letter below or any parts of it to write your elected federal officials TODAY. Thank you–your children and grandchildren will thank you.

[Find Senators’ and Representatives’ phone, email, and US mail addresses here and here.]

Dear

Because I believe you to be among the 90 percent of Americans who deeply value the essential work of the United States Postal Service, I am writing to request your help. Media reports currently abound about deliberate efforts by the Trump Administration to hobble the USPS by cutting work hours, altering work rules and record-keeping requirements, removing postal collection boxes, decommissioning mail sorting equipment, reorganizing management to centralize power, and destroying hundreds of expensive barcode sorters.

The President, himself, has admitted more than once of taking an active role in CONTINUE READING: Take Action to Save the USPS and the Election | Live Long and Prosper