Who will next sell-out our children’s futures in the name of God and Country? | Reclaim Reform

Who will next sell-out our children’s futures in the name of God and Country? | Reclaim Reform:

Who will next sell-out our children’s futures in the name of God and Country?

How can government be run as a business, a public/private partnership in education and the advancement of technology? Easy. Hand federal funds to corporations who will drain as much profit as possible into their coffers and damn the consequences. Use a front, a shill, who shovels funding to private organizations and politically connected tax-free religious institutions and their wealthy leaders who wave the flag covered cross as a sacred emblem. Billionaire heiress Betsy DeVos wants to be that next shill.

Who will next sell-out our children’s futures in the name of God and Country?

Please don’t engage in magical thinking and denial. Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump have played their parts of this corporate sell-off of our children’s futures. Secretaries of Education Margaret Spellings, Arne Duncan, John King, and next (?) Betsy DeVos.

The reality is that it’s all about money and power. The Education Industrial Complex is no chimera. Look at the New York Stock Exchange for investment opportunities. The big money is from multinational investors. You can buy into it if you choose to.

All of the players will financially benefit personally and for their Big-Two Political Party of choice.

Our indoctrinated children will believe they are educated. Our country will still have the same name, flag, symbols and attached non-essentials, but the republic will be an empty shell. The middle class will be a blurred memory. The welfare and good of the people will no longer be served. Public education will be the scorned “government schools” as teachers Who will next sell-out our children’s futures in the name of God and Country? | Reclaim Reform:

Hitting Left. Episode #1. | Fred Klonsky

Hitting Left. Episode #1. | Fred Klonsky:

Hitting Left. Episode #1

 From left, Michael Klonsky, Troy LaRaviere, Fred Klonsky.

Fired For A Day. Guest post by Michelle Gunderson. | BustED Pencils

Fired For A Day. Guest post by Michelle Gunderson. | BustED Pencils:

Fired For A Day. Guest post by Michelle Gunderson.

Our school system is falling apart, and what solution do Rahm Emanuel and his appointed school CEO, Forrest Claypool have? Firing us for four days.

It might seem as an extreme statement, but that is essentially what we are experiencing. Chicago teachers have been furloughed for four days, and today is one of them. Our work is no longer needed for these days, we are not entering our buildings, and our work has been put on hold in a point in time where the work of our city’s teachers is needed more than ever. We have been fired.

I love my job dearly. I actually live and breathe teaching.

For several years I have taught the inclusion classroom for our first grade team. This means that children with special needs and general education students are taught in the same classroom with the variety of specialists and supports needed for everyone to learn. In room 114 at Nettelhorst we work with one special education co-teacher, 3 teaching assistants, a speech therapist, and an occupational therapist. We have additional help from our school psychologist and social worker. This is a huge team of people, but it is required to make sure that everyone learns.

So what do we do on these days of professional development, like the one that we are losing today? We plan, we talk, we envision the work our students can and should be doing. These days are necessary for establishing the working platform that guides the lives of children. Losing these days is no small matter. It hurts us all.

Taking away this day and the pay that accompanies this work is wrong. There are those who would argue that teachers are professional salaried employees and should do whatever it Fired For A Day. Guest post by Michelle Gunderson. | BustED Pencils:

Trump’s plan to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment creates a huge campaign finance loophole for churches to exploit - Salon.com

Trump’s plan to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment creates a huge campaign finance loophole for churches to exploit - Salon.com:

Trump’s plan to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment creates a huge campaign finance loophole for churches to exploit

Trump’s hard play for the religious right is a gift to big donors who want less transparency in campaign financing

President Donald Trump appears steadfastly committed to his campaign promise to repeal one of the clearest legislative examples of the separation of church and state in this country, recently repeating his vow to allow churches to engage in political activity while retaining their current tax-exempt status — opening the door for religious groups to become big-time partisan players in U.S. elections.

According to the IRS’ website, churches and other nonprofit organizations that are exempt from taxation “are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” Specifically, ministers are restricted from endorsing or opposing candidates from the pulpit. If they do, they risk losing their tax-exempt status, under terms of 1954 legislation named for its principal sponsor, then-senator Lyndon Johnson. 

Churches, charities and educational institutions are tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code, which not only exempts a group’s income from taxation, but also allows it to receive tax-deductible donations.

Under the so-called Johnson Amendment, religious leaders remain free to engage in political and social speech outside of the church.

Still for many on the religious right, repealing the amendment appears to be an issue of religious freedom. And President Trump is determined to appease the evangelical base that propelled him into office.

“Freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it is also a right under threat all around us,” the thrice-married Trump told religious leaders at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, after he asked them to pray for his “Celerity Apprentice” replacement Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ratings. “That is why I will get rid of and totally destroy the Johnson Amendment and allow our representatives of faith to speak freely and without fear of retribution.”

Even though only Congress can repeal the law, Trump has repeatedly pledged to personally do away with the restriction. Trump argued on the campaign trail that religious organizations “have much to contribute to our politics,” telling a group of Christian leaders the amendment “prevents [church members] from speaking your minds from your own pulpits” — conflating political campaigning and religious worship.

He told a crowd in Iowa in August, “It denies your pastors their right to free speech, and has had a huge negative impact on religion.”

One of the biggest applause lines of the Republican National Convention last summer was Trump’s call to repeal the amendment. For the first time, the repeal of the half-century-old tax law was adopted into the official GOP platform.

Allowing churches to express political opinions isn’t the main concern of critics of Trump’s proposal to do away with the longstanding law, however. At issue is whether a tax-exempt institution can engage in electioneering and retain its tax-exempt status, according to Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.

“Church members could give tax-deductible donations to a church, which would then be used by the church to campaign for a specific candidate,” Jones told Salon. “It could effectively turn churches into campaign offices and pastors into party Trump’s plan to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment creates a huge campaign finance loophole for churches to exploit - Salon.com:

The popular uprising that threatens the Betsy DeVos nomination - The Washington Post

The popular uprising that threatens the Betsy DeVos nomination - The Washington Post:

The popular uprising that threatens the Betsy DeVos nomination

People listen to speakers during a rally in Portland, Ore., on Jan. 27. Several hundred people gathered with Oregon congressional leaders in protest against education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos. (Don Ryan/AP)

If anyone can explain why Betsy DeVos has become the most embattled nominee ever for education secretary, it’s Anna Caudill, Tennessee mother of two.

Caudill has a son with disabilities. Her public school district did such a poor job educating him, she says, that she is suing in federal court. She can’t afford a private school, so she is home-schooling him. She’s exactly the kind of parent who would seem aligned with DeVos, who believes in using public funds to help parents pay for private education.

But Caudill strongly opposes DeVos.

“Vouchers don’t come with any oversight of the schools in which they’re spent,” Caudill said. “They put the parent in the position of trading a child’s civil rights for money.”

This 44-year-old is part of the small army of parents, teachers and others around the country who have risen up against DeVos as President Trump’s nominee heads toward a breathtakingly close confirmation vote. They come from places as diverse as rural Alaska, inner-city Detroit and — like Caudill — suburban Nashville.

They have held protests and clogged Senate phone lines with calls to send a message: They don’t want an education secretary who preaches escape from public schools. They want one who understands public schools and will work to improve them.

On Friday, the Republican-led Senate advanced the nomination toward final action, likely next week, that could result in a 50-50 split. That would force Vice President Pence to cast a rare tiebreaking vote.

Republicans say opposition to DeVos is the work of teachers unions and their toadies in the Democratic Party.

“Organized labor is pulling out all the stops in a last-ditch effort to resist accountability and deny equal educational opportunity to poor families, minorities and underrepresented communities,” said Ed Patru, spokesman for a group called Friends of Betsy DeVos.

It is true that unions have mobilized against DeVos, spreading the message that she is an enemy of public schools. But many others have joined the opposition.The popular uprising that threatens the Betsy DeVos nomination - The Washington Post:

Wanted: One Republican With Integrity, to Defeat Betsy DeVos - The New York Times

Wanted: One Republican With Integrity, to Defeat Betsy DeVos - The New York Times:

Wanted: One Republican With Integrity, to Defeat Betsy DeVos

This country needs a few good Republicans — one more would do — to rescue it from Betsy DeVos, one of President Trump’s worst cabinet choices and his pick to run the Department of Education.

The vote to confirm Ms. DeVos is expected as soon as Monday, and the Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine now say they’ll vote against her, citing hundreds of calls they’ve received from furious voters. The result would be a tie that Vice President Mike Pence would break in Ms. DeVos’s favor. The extra Republican vote could come from one of several independent-minded senators; one candidate is Lamar Alexander, an expert on public schools who actually owes the country a good turn because of his failure as chairman of the committee vetting Ms. DeVos to question her closely and to give more time to her critics.

There are few more telling examples of Mr. Trump’s disdain for the federal government’s critical role in lifting up America’s schoolchildren than his choice of Ms. DeVos. She has spent years funneling her inherited fortune into a campaign to replace the nation’s traditional public schools with federally funded charter schools, regardless of the latter’s performance, and supporting vouchers, which help families send children to private or parochial schools and drain funds from public schools that need more, not less, support.

Mr. Alexander didn’t give senators much time to question Ms. DeVos, but it was sufficient to reveal her near-total unfamiliarity with public education law, standards and even problems. A conservative ideologue, she fell back on most policy questions to an assertion that states should make their own rules, even on settled matters of federal law, like access for handicapped children.

She robotically refused to answer whether she would hold charter schools and other public schools equally accountable. She drew national ridicule when she rejected the notion of gun-free zones around schools, saying guns might come in handy for shooting “potential grizzlies” — an answer delivered to Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, where the Sandy Hook shooting occurred.

Betsy DeVos’s nomination is not about making public education more effective, or helping publicly schooled children succeed; it’s about blowing up the system without a clue as to what comes next. Mr. Alexander was secretary of education himself, from 1991 to 1993, and he ran for president twice, speaking out against the influence of money in politics. And while he went way easy on Ms. DeVos in the hearings, he surely knows better than to place her in a job of such importance to the country’s future.

There are other bad cabinet nominees with credentials as dubious as Ms. DeVos’s whose possible ascension to high office should terrify any thoughtful Republican. Among those for whom final votes have yet to be held are Scott Pruitt, Tom Price and Steven Mnuchin, Mr. Trump’s picks for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Treasury. Mr. Pruitt, who as Oklahoma attorney general repeatedly sued the agency he would now lead, showed his contempt for the Senate by repeatedly telling senators to go get the answers they wanted themselves, by filing records requests with the state of Oklahoma. Mr. Price has shown incredibly poor judgment by investing in health care stocks while writing and promoting legislation that would benefit those investments. Mr. Mnuchin, a Trump fund-raiser and financier, failed to disclose $100 million in personal assets as well as his role in an investment fund registered to an offshore tax haven.

The Senate’s constitutional duty to “advise and consent” on presidential nominations was intended by the founders to counter the wrong-headed populist impulses of the House. Voters should remind Republican senators that if they surrender to Mr. Trump on appointees so clearly unfit, they will be relinquishing a historic obligation and tarnishing themselves.

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Wanted: One Republican With Integrity, to Defeat Betsy DeVos - The New York Times:

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Nevada's Universal School Vouchers Foreshadow DeVos Effects - The Atlantic

Nevada's Universal School Vouchers Foreshadow DeVos Effects - The Atlantic:

A Case Study for Betsy DeVos's Educational Utopia
Nevada's failed universal voucher program provided a useful template for what a school landscape could look like under the education secretary-nominee

In a low-key interview in 2015, the Education Secretary-nominee and billionaire school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos laid out the game plan for the movement going forward.

It was a familiar playbook—charter schools, online schools, and blended learning—to which DeVos added something of her own: DeVos supports all of those things, she said, plus “any combination, or any kind of choice that hasn’t yet been thought of.” While DeVos has since said that she wouldn’t push for a federal voucher mandate, the case of Nevada’s universal voucher could provide a blueprint for states to do it anyway.

When it was passed in 2015, the Nevada law establishing education savings accounts—a new form of voucher that places the money into a savings account—cracked a longstanding code that no other state had been able to touch. While the first wave of vouchers passed by states came with requirements to keep the money in the hands of families most affected by underperforming schools, voucher proponents saw an opportunity in Nevada to go even further.

 State Republicans wrote the bill shoulder-to-shoulder with school-choice lobbyists and with the intention of creating the first “universal” voucher available to anyone regardless of income. Far from the labyrinthine requirements of programs in other states, the “Super Voucher,” as it has been dubbed by local public-school advocates, is so expansive that families qualify for up to $5,700 in state dollars simply if their child attended a public school for 100 days prior to applying.

More importantly, the voucher was baked into the existing budget for public education, allowing parents to take money the state would otherwise spend on schools and use it on things like private-school tuition, tutoring, and even homeschooling. It was the closest any state had come to the universal voucher originally envisioned by the economist Milton Friedman, who saw unfettered choice as the only hope to ensure poor families had access to good schools.

But data from Nevada, consistently ranked at the bottom in the nation for student achievement, quickly showed that a vast majority of applicants were not from low-income areas, but the wealthiest neighborhoods in Reno and Las Vegas. In fact, applicants came disproportionately from neighborhoods that already had Nevada's Universal School Vouchers Foreshadow DeVos Effects - The Atlantic:

Alexander: Senate Poised to Confirm Betsy DeVos and “Swap a National School Board for a Local School Board”

Press Releases | Press | Chairman's Newsroom | Chairman | The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions:

Alexander: Senate Poised to Confirm Betsy DeVos and “Swap a National School Board for a Local School Board”

Following Senate vote to advance nomination, highlights DeVos supporters, including 22 governors and 4 United States Education Secretaries

WASHINGTON, February 3, 2017 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said the Senate was poised to confirm Betsy DeVos on Tuesday, “swapping a national school board for a local school board,” after the Senate today voted to end debate on her nomination and move to a vote.

“She believes what 85 of us voted for in the law that President Obama called a ‘Christmas Miracle’ in December, 2015—and that is to reverse the trend from a national school board and restore control of our children and our schools to those closest to the children,” Alexander said. “There will be no mandates for Common Core, no mandates for teacher evaluation, no mandates for vouchers from the United States Department of Education headed by Betsy DeVos. We'll be swapping a national school board for what she believes in, which is a local school board—which is what 85 of us voted for.”

“Over the last 30 years as this country has worked to try to improve our public schools, much of that energy has come from outside the public school establishment,” Alexander said. “In the mid-1980s, all of the governors met together in 1985 and 1986 on one subject for a whole year: the purpose was how can we help improve our public schools? … Since that time, many governors, many business leaders have worked hard in support of our public schools, trying to help them become even better opportunities for our children, and among those has been Betsy DeVos.”

He continued, “There are 22 governors who have written letters to me, as chairman of the Senate's education committee, supporting Betsy DeVos. They see her as someone from outside the system of public education who, as they worked for 30 years, can help change and improve it.  …Four of the education secretaries support Betsy DeVos: Bill Bennett, Rod Paige, Margaret Spellings—I support her.” 

“Now, some have said she has spent her time working on giving children choices of schools other than public schools. She’s done that. And it's always puzzled me as to why anybody would criticize that. The idea that a low-income child should have the same opportunity or more of the same opportunities that a wealthy family has would seem to me to be a very all-American idea. And not only does it seem to be, it's an idea that underlies the most successful piece of social policy our country has ever enacted, arguably: The G.I. Bill for Veterans in 1944. Think about that. The veterans came home from World War II. We gave them a scholarship. It followed them to the college of their choice.

“Mrs. DeVos has argued for the same thing for children. Why is an idea that’s helped to create the Greatest Generation and the greatest colleges in the world so dangerous for schools? … [S]he has been among the forefront of the leaders like the governors for the most successful reform over the last 30 years to change and improve public education, and that would be the public charter schools. Those began with 12 schools in Minnesota, created by the Democratic Farmer Labor Party in the early 1990’s. Since then, charter schools have been supported by every president: President Obama, President Clinton, Presidents Bush, President Obama's most recent Education Secretary was a founder of charter schools.

“This Congress four times, by bipartisan majorities has supported charter schools. The last six United States Education Secretaries have supported charter schools. Charter schools have grown from 12 Democratic Farmer Labor schools to 6,800 today and 2.9 million children go there. Teachers have more freedom and parents have more choices. They are public schools, and Betsy DeVos is on the forefront of helping to create that opportunity for public education.”

Alexander’s full remarks given on the Senate floor today are below:

With this vote, the Senate will move early next week to confirm the nomination of Betsy DeVos to be the United Stated Education Secretary. She’ll be an excellent Education Secretary, in my judgment, and an important one for this country. The number one job of the United States Education Secretary is to help create an environment in which our 100,000 public schools succeed because that’s where nine out of ten of our children go. When I was Education Secretary in the early 1990s for President George H. W. Bush, I had the privilege of working with a man named David Kearns, who had been the Chief Executive Officer of the Xerox Corporation. 

He came in as a deputy education secretary at time when he was not the only one of the country’s leading businessmen, but he was also a leading businessman who tried to help change public education. And David Kearns’ belief was that it’s very difficult to help children by changing public education if you try to do it from within. He respected, as all of us do, the teachers and the parents and the students who work within the public education system. But, over the last 30 years as this country has worked to try to improve our public schools, much of that energy has come from outside the public school establishment. Among those were the governors of the country. In the mid-1980s, all of the governors met together in 1985 and 1986 on one subject for a whole year: the purpose was how can we help improve our public schools?

I was chairman of the governors that year. Bill Clinton was the vice chairman. We did that in a bipartisan way. We did that from outside the schools. Since that time, many governors, many business leaders have worked hard in support of our public schools, trying to help them become even better opportunities for our children, and among those has been Betsy DeVos. 

The governors that I spoke of are governors that are familiar names in this country. I think of Governor Jeb Bush. I think of Governor John Engler of Michigan. I think of Governor Mitt Romney and the work they did in their respective states to make their public schools better and to create other opportunities for children. All of those governors—the three I mentioned—Bush, Romney, Engler, they support Betsy DeVos. There are 22 governors who have written letters to me, as chairman of the Senate's education committee, supporting Betsy DeVos. They see her as someone from outside the system of public education who, as they worked for 30 years, can help change and improve it. I ask consent to include in the record following my remarks the names of the 22 governors who support her. They come from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, [and] Wisconsin. The governors of all those states support Betsy DeVos.

Four of the education secretaries support Betsy DeVos: Bill Bennett, Rod Paige, Margaret Spellings—I support her. Joe Lieberman, who served in this body and worked on the D.C. Voucher program for many years, endorsed her. So, she has strong support from the governors, who for 30 years have been working hard to successfully improve our public schools.

Now, some have said she has spent her time working on giving children choices of schools other than public schools. She’s done that. And it's always puzzled me as to why anybody would criticize that. The idea that a low-income child should have the same opportunity or more of the same opportunities that a wealthy family has would seem to me to be a very all-American idea. And not only does it seem to be, it's an idea that underlies the most successful piece of social policy our country has ever enacted, arguably: The G.I. Bill for Veterans in 1944. Think about that. The veterans came home from World War II. We gave them a scholarship. It followed them to the college of their choice. Mrs. DeVos has argued for the same thing for children. Why is an idea that’s helped to create the Greatest Generation and the greatest colleges in the world so dangerous for schools?

But I would argue that she has been among the forefront of the leaders like the governors for the most successful reform over the last 30 years to change and improve public education, and that would be the public charter schools. Those began with 12 schools in Minnesota, created by the Democratic Farmer Labor Party in the early 1990’s. Since then, charter schools have been supported by every president: President Obama, President Clinton, Presidents Bush, President Obama's most recent Education Secretary was a founder of charter schools.

This Congress four times, by bipartisan majorities has supported charter schools. The last six United States Education Secretaries have supported charter schools. Charter schools have grown from 12 Democratic Farmer Labor schools to 6,800 today and 2.9 million children go there. Teachers have more freedom and parents have more choices. They are public schools, and Betsy DeVos is on the forefront of helping to create that opportunity for public education.

And finally, Madam President, she believes what 85 of us voted for in the law that President Obama called a ‘Christmas Miracle’ in December, 2015. And that is to reverse the trend from a national school board and restore control of our children and our schools to those closest to the children. There will be no mandates for Common Core, no mandates for teacher evaluation, no mandates for vouchers from the United States Department of Education headed by Betsy DeVos. We'll be swapping a national school board for what she believes in, which is a local school board—which is what 85 of us voted for. I'm pleased to support her. Following my record, I ask consent [to include] an article from Max Eden, published a couple of days ago, which shows that Detroit charter schools by three major studies are better and the children perform better than the traditional schools in Detroit, and I look forward to casting my vote for Betsy DeVos for U.S. Education Secretary early next week.Press Releases | Press | Chairman's Newsroom | Chairman | The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions:

Time to Count the Testing that Students and Teachers Endure (CA Dept of Education)

Assessment Information - Testing (CA Dept of Education):
Assessment Information
Administration dates and general assessment information for California public schools.

The California Department of Education (CDE) has a clear vision and commitment to establishing innovative assessments. These assessments include a variety of approaches and item types that model and promote high-quality teaching and student learning and set a course to ensure that all California students are well prepared to enter college and careers in today’s competitive global economy.

The purpose of the Assessment Information Web page is to provide details regarding the development, coordination, and implementation of statewide testing programs in California.

• Three Year Assessment Timeline
• Assessment System Chart
• Student Testing Dates

Statewide Assessment

California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP)

• California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System
  California's new statewide student assessment system established January 1, 2014.
• Smarter Balanced Assessment System
  Latest information about new generation of English language arts/literacy and mathematics assessments.

California English Language Development Test (CELDT)

• California English Language Development Test (CELDT)
  A required state test for English language proficiency that is given to students whose primary language is other than English.

California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE)

• California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE)
  Beginning with the Class of 2006, all public school students were required to pass the CAHSEE to earn a high school diploma. Senate Bill 172, signed into law effective January 1, 2016, suspended the CAHSEE diploma requirement and the administration of the CAHSEE through the 2017-18 school year.

California High School Proficiency Examination (CHSPE)

• California High School Proficiency Examination (CHSPE)
  A test for eligible students to earn a high school proficiency certificate.

Grade Two Diagnostic Assessments

• Information about diagnostic assessments for students in grade two in English language arts/literacy and mathematics that meet the requirements of California Education Code Section 60644.

High School Equivalency Tests (HSET)

• High School Equivalency Tests (HSET)
  High school equivalency tests for students 18 years old and older, and 17 years old in some instances, for the purpose of receiving a California High School Equivalency Certificate.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

• National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)
  Tests administered to students in grades four, eight, and twelve in subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, and science.

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  A physical fitness test (FITNESSGRAM®) administered to students in grades five, seven, and nine.

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Pick for U.S. education secretary rankles autism community | Spectrum

Pick for U.S. education secretary rankles autism community | Spectrum:

Pick for U.S. education secretary rankles autism community

Autism researchers and advocates alike are sounding the alarm as President Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. secretary of education — billionaire Betsy DeVos — heads to the Senate floor for confirmation. DeVos, they say, is unqualified and unfamiliar with the policies that most affect the rights and education of children with autism.

Yesterday morning, the Senate education committee voted 12-11 along party lines to advance DeVos’ nomination to a vote by the full Senate. The date for that vote has not yet been set, but it could happen as early as this week.

“We are in deep, deep trouble as an autism community in the next four years,” says Matthew Siegel, faculty scientist at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute. “It’s going to be a wild ride.”

Siegel and others point to DeVos’ advocacy for private and charter schools which, unlike public schools, have no federal obligation to provide services for children with autism or other conditions. And in mid-January, she stumbled on questions from the Senate education committee about the law that grants children with disabilities the right to education in a public school.

“I think she’s a terrible choice for all children in public schools, and children with autism especially,” says David Mandell, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. “She’s made it clear that she wants to divert money away from traditional public schools — the schools in which 85 percent of American children, and a higher percent of children with disabilities, receive their education.”

DeVos has also come under scrutiny because she and her husband are major investors in Neurocore, a Michigan-based company that offers a controversial treatment for people with autism.

“We have a lot of evidence-based treatments that actually do help children with autism,” says Fred Volkmar, director of the Yale Child Study Center. Her awareness of autism treatments is limited to one that “has not yet been shown to be effective,” he says.

Pivot points:

DeVos has a troubling track record on schools and education policy. In Michigan, she advocated to divert state funds away from public to private and Pick for U.S. education secretary rankles autism community | Spectrum:

Eli Broad’s opposition to DeVos reveals faultlines in charter school movement | EdSource

Eli Broad’s opposition to DeVos reveals faultlines in charter school movement | EdSource:

Eli Broad's opposition to DeVos reveals faultlines in charter school movement

Eli Broad vs. Betsy DeVos.

It is an unlikely duel between two multibillionaire philanthropists who both support charter schools.

Broad’s opposition to DeVos, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. secretary of education, underscores the complexity of the politics of the charter school movement, and is revealing further fault lines in it.

As reported by EdSource, the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association has vehemently protested DeVos’ nomination, alleging lax accountability of charter school standards in DeVos’ home state of Michigan. The California Charter School Association has indicated that it would oppose private school vouchers in California along the lines advocated by DeVos.

But in a remarkably blunt letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, this week, Broad went even further, portraying DeVos as a threat to the public education system in the United States.

“With Betsy DeVos at the helm of the U.S. Department of Education, much of the good work that has been accomplished to improve public education for all of Eli Broad’s opposition to DeVos reveals faultlines in charter school movement | EdSource: