Michigan taxpayers pour nearly $1 billion a year into charter schools — but state laws regulating charters are among the nation’s weakest, and the state demands little accountability in how taxpayer dollars are spent and how well children are educated.A yearlong investigation by the Detroit Free Press reveals that Michigan’s lax oversight has enabled a range of abuses in a system now responsible for more than 140,000 Michigan children. That figure is growing as more parents try charter schools as an alternative to traditional districts
But DeVos, a former chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, represents the most conservative corner of the movement. She and her husband have funded a series of efforts to turn public school funding into vouchers for students to attend private schools. They have also fought to prevent charter schools, including for-profit charter schools, from being more tightly regulated.
The DeVos appointment signals that Trump is serious about the $20 billion school voucher plan he rolled out on the campaign trail. The proposal would redirect huge swaths of the federal education budget away from school districts and toward low-income parents, allowing them to spend a voucher at a public or private school of their choice, potentially including for-profit, virtual, and religious schools.From The Atlantic, Five Things to Know About Betsy DeVos, Trump's Pick for Education Secretary:
DeVos will push for school choice. DeVos, who heads up the pro-charter and pro-school-voucher nonprofit American Federation for Children, has said parents should have the ability to choose the best schools for their children, whether they are traditional public schools, charters, or private schools. Trump has proposed creating a $20 billion federal voucher program for families to use to send their kids to the school of their choice. But, as Education Week noted recently, making that program a reality could be difficult. It’s unclear exactly where the funding would come from, and even if Congress did manage to pass such a proposal, some states currently prohibit funds from going to schools with religious affiliations, which could complicate how those funds are used.
Critics of the Common Core standards may have reason to worry. While Trump repeatedly assailed the set of standards used in most states across the country, DeVos has been less clear about her stance on them.
Expect deregulation to be a priority. According to Chalkbeat, DeVos’s family poured $1.45 million into an effort to prevent Michigan from adding oversight for charter schools. That effort ultimately failed. DeVos and her husband have been supporters of charter schools for decades and longtime opponents of regulation.
She’s politically active, but she doesn’t have a lot of political experience.DeVos, 58, is married to Dick DeVos, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the governorship in Michigan. He is the former president of Amway, which his father co-founded, and of the Orlando Magic NBA team. Her brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater, the controversial security firm. The family has given to a number of conservative and Christian organizations. While Betsy DeVos has served as chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, much of her work has been at the state level, and she will now have to, as Chalkbeat wrote, “operate within a complicated web of interests and priorities, including with education officials in states that did not support Trump.” Her ability to navigate Washington is largely untested.
The reaction to her nomination is mixed.
DeVos’s selection as education secretary will please Republicans like Senator Lamar Alexander, who heads up the Senate’s education committee.
But teachers’ unions see her support of charter schools and vouchers as an affront to public education, something Randi Weingarten, the head of one of the nation’s largest teachers’ Seattle Schools Community Forum: Just When You Learn Rhee Won't be Secretary of Ed, Trump Goes One Worse:
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
Request for Applications (DOC; Revised 03-Aug-2016) | Updated School Improvement Grant Cohort 4, Fiscal Years 2014, 2015, and 2016, Local Educational Agency Request for Applications. Updates include revisions to the timeline, eligibility language, and the California State-determined Intervention Model. The application contains general information, SIG forms, a SIG application checklist, an application rubric, and important links. The application was closed on September 8, 2016. |
| A letter announcing the release of the School Improvement Grant Cohort 4, Local Educational Agency, Fiscal Years 2014, 2015, and 2016, Request for Applications. The letter also provides details regarding the SIG program. | |
| Rubric, Scoring Guide, and Application Checklist (DOC) | This document contains a separate copy of the SIG application checklist, scoring guide, and application rubric that is included in the School Improvement Grant Cohort 4, Fiscal Years 2014, 2015, and 2016, Local Educational Agency Request for Applications as Appendices D―F. |
| SIG Form 2 (XLS) | This Excel document contains SIG Form 2—Implementation Charts for each of the SIG Intervention models. The LEA must complete one SIG Form—2 Implementation Chart, that is specific to the intervention model to be implemented for each school site. This document is required for the application. |
| SIG Form 3 (XLS) | This Excel workbook contains templates for the School Improvement Grant (SIG) Form 3—Local Educational Agency (LEA) and School Budget. Only one workbook should be submitted and it must include budgets for all school sites and the school district. |
| Funding Results (XLS) | A total of 11 districts were funded on behalf of 26 schools. |
| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| The following General Assurances and Certifications are requirements of applicants and grantees as a condition of receiving funds. Applicants do not need to sign and return the general assurances and certifications with the application; instead, they must download them and keep them on file to be available for compliance reviews, complaint investigations, or audits. Applicants that participate in the Consolidated Application should already have a copy of the general assurances and certifications on file and do not need to keep a separate copy. Program-specific assurances are not included here and should be listed separately on the RFA. |
DeVos is in most ways a conventional choice for the position: a longtime advocate of alternatives to the public school system, with close ties to many on Capitol Hill, she is closely aligned to Republican education officials like Sen. Lamar Alexander and serves on the board of Jeb Bush’s education foundation. She has also proclaimed herself an opponent of the Common Core education initiative, which Trump often denounced at his rallies with promises of a “repeal,” though she initially supported the standards.
GLEP is a strong supporter of the Common Core and its continued implementation in Michigan. They are part of the Michigan Coalition for High Student Standards which opposes SB 826 to Repeal and Replace Common Core, science, social studies, and aligned assessments with pre-common core Massachusetts standards. Stop Common Core in Michigan believes there is a high correlation between candidates who accept the GLEP endorsement and their future votes on legislation.GLEP claims NOT to have a litmus test on Common Core. This allows candidates to say they are against common core and still gain the endorsement of GLEP. But DeVos is a champion for “school choice” while at the same time continuing the implementation of common national standards. The DeVos definition of “school choice” is the freedom to choose which common core school will track your child from cradle-to-career (P20). All Michigan charters must use common national standards. That’s NOT true choice.Like Bill Gates, Betsy DeVos has some money and has some things she’d like to see different. Like all good investors, DeVos likely expects a return on her investment. And if you don’t play the game under their rules and vote the way you want her to vote, you may find yourself challenged the next time you run for office.
