After the election – Welcome to our new future :( | Parents United for Public Education

After the election – Welcome to our new future :( | Parents United for Public Education:

After the election – Welcome to our new future :(

We wish we could provide a more insightful blob post, but there are already great investigative works out there. Please take some time to inform yourself on the latest Secretary of Education appointment. Public education is incredibly important to our republic. We do need to fight for it more than we think we should have to.

From Education Voters:

5 reasons why Trump pick Betsy DeVos is wrong for Secretary of Education

Posted November 30, 2016

POSTED IN: CHARTER SCHOOLS, EDUCATION FUNDING, EDUCATION NEWS, ELECTION 2016, MICHIGAN

39 comments

By Amanda Litvinov

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Last week, President-elect Donald Trump nominated as Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, a billionaire and conservative mega-donor who has no classroom experience, and whose work in public education consists mainly of efforts to privatize it.

“In Michigan, we know firsthand how disastrous DeVos’s ideology is, as she has spent decades wielding her family’s money and influence to destroy public education and turn our schools and students over to for-profit corporations,” said Michigan Education Association President Steven Cook, who served as a paraprofessional in Lansing Public Schools for 15 years.

Elementary school teacher and NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia said DeVos’s work “has done more to undermine public education than support students. She has lobbied for failed schemes, like vouchers — which take away funding and local control from our public schools — to fund private schools at taxpayers’ expense. These schemes do nothing to help our most-vulnerable students while they ignore or exacerbate glaring opportunity gaps.”

Here are just five of the reasons why Betsy DeVos should never serve as the Secretary of Education:

1. Betsy DeVos has no training or experience in education.

She has never worked in a school in any capacity, and does not hold a degree in education (nor did she or her children ever attend a public school).

2. Like Donald Trump, DeVos is an ardent supporter of “school choice” privatization schemes, despite a complete lack of evidence that privatizing public schools produces better education.

In Michigan, Betsy and husband Dick DeVos have pushed for decades for so-called “choice” schemes and corporate charter schools, most of which have performed worse than the state average. They are long-time Republican party donors who support pro “school choice” candidates, and Betsy DeVos has served on the boards of two major groups leading the charge to privatize public schools.

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3. DeVos has invested millions lobbying for laws that drain resources from After the election – Welcome to our new future :( | Parents United for Public Education:

Finland can teach Betsy DeVos a thing or two about valuing teachers and school choice that’s real - The Hechinger Report

Finland can teach Betsy DeVos a thing or two about valuing teachers and school choice that’s real - The Hechinger Report:

Finland can teach Betsy DeVos a thing or two about valuing teachers and school choice that’s real
Lessons in educational options from a highly ranked nation

Joensuu, FINLAND — Things are not going well in Pessi Pollanen’s physics class at the University of Eastern Finland’s elite teacher-training lab school. Halfway through a high school lesson on the complex subject of string theory, students game on their laptops and text on their phones. Heikki Saari is a teacher trainer and 40-year education veteran observing the bright, 23-year-old teacher in training. Saari’s feedback: Slow down. Let speech, drawings, graphics and models flow “so the students can truly learn.” Pollanen, a candidate for the master’s degree in education that’s a teaching requirement here, soaks it all in, saying Saari is “one of the top-tier physics teachers in Finland. He’s got a lot to offer me when it comes to improving my teaching.”

On Monday, Pollanen teaches the next lesson at an ideal pace, checks if students absorb the material, switches tools seamlessly, makes eye contact and smiles. Spellbound students take notes. To Saari’s praise later, Pollanen confesses, “It’s a very complicated challenge for me, I have to strike a balance between having a good classroom atmosphere and being scientific, making sense and being empathetic. I’m happy the students could connect to this lesson.”

Another lesson: Networks of top schools, teachers and training programs can produce many educational choices.

Donald Trump is promoting “school choice” as he vows to improve the American education system. To achieve this vision, he should start by putting his incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on a plane to world education superpower Finland to see what school choice means in its most powerful form — the choice from among numerous, great, neighborhood schools anywhere in the country.

Just ranked by the World Economic Forum as the No. 1 primary school system globally Finland shows us, that true educational choice means holding politicians accountable to provide families the choice between safe, well-resourced, high-quality local schools, especially in high-poverty areas, schools run by teachers trained at Finland can teach Betsy DeVos a thing or two about valuing teachers and school choice that’s real - The Hechinger Report:

Majority of students restrained in Kentucky schools are in 3rd grade or younger | Lexington Herald-Leader

Majority of students restrained in Kentucky schools are in 3rd grade or younger | Lexington Herald-Leader:

Majority of students restrained in Kentucky schools are in 3rd grade or younger

Restraint and seclusion of students in Kentucky schools is often unnecessary, and students with disabilities and students of color were the most likely to be restrained and secluded in 2014-15, a report released this week by the Children’s Law Center Inc. said .

Statewide, in 2014-15, students with disabilities accounted for 58 percent of those restrained in Kentucky schools and were involved in 89.3 percent of the incidents of seclusion during the 2014-15 school year, the report said. Students of color were significantly overrepresented for both restraint and seclusion incidents during the 2014-15 school year and involved in reported incidents of restraints at nearly five times the rate of their white peers.

The report from the center, which has offices in Lexington and Covington, cites Kentucky Department of Education numbers that show students were restrained 5,985 times during the 2014-15 school year, up from 4,885 restraints reported for the 2013-14 school year. For the 2015-16 school year, the number continued to rise to 6,489.

“We were particularly shocked to see that 60 percent of school restraints in Kentucky are students in the third grade and below,” said Amanda Mullins Bear, managing attorney of the Lexington office of the Children’s Law Center, who presented the findings to the Kentucky Juvenile Justice Oversight Council in Frankfort.

Kentucky’s regulation regarding restraint and seclusion became effective on Feb. 1, 2013. It specifies how and when educators can restrain or isolate unruly students.

The regulation allows students to be physically restrained — preventing students from moving torso, arms, legs or head — or placed in a secluded area away from classmates to protect them from hurting themselves or others. It also bans the use of physical restraint or seclusion as student punishment.

But Bear said the regulations need to be enhanced to mandate better monitoring, oversight and an enforcement mechanism to ensure that restraint and seclusion are only being used in the most extreme circumstances. Use of the techniques should be limited, better documented and exercised with more accountability,

The report recommends that the Kentucky Department of Education provide oversight on restraint and seclusion and permit restraint and seclusion solely in instances where there isMajority of students restrained in Kentucky schools are in 3rd grade or younger | Lexington Herald-Leader:

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article118733183.html#storylink=cpy

Teach For America in Charlotte: Making segregated schools work | The Charlotte Observer

Teach For America in Charlotte: Making segregated schools work | The Charlotte Observer:

Can segregated schools work in CMS? Teach For America’s Charlotte forum says yes

While the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board talks about breaking up racial and economic isolation, Teach For America Charlotte is holding a forum on making “hypersegregated” schools successful.

On Dec. 15, two national speakers will discuss ways they’ve seen schools thrive without significant numbers of white or middle-class students. The free forum is part of its “New Reality Speaker Series,” focusing on poverty and academic success in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. The first, on CMS history, was held in October.

This month’s panelists are David Johns, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, and Terrell Hill, an administrator with Windsor Public Schools in Connecticut.

CMS currently has 76 schools where poverty is so high that everyone automatically gets free lunch and breakfast. Almost 87 percent of those students are black and Hispanic, while only 6 percent are white.

[READ MORE: Maps and details about 2016 racial breakdowns in CMS]

The district is about to launch a new magnet lottery system that uses socioeconomic status to reduce concentrations of disadvantage that have created numerous high-poverty, low-scoring schools. Those changes will take effect in 2017-18. A second phase of the CMS student assignment review, focused on neighborhood schools, is gearing up now, with preliminary proposals expected in January. Those changes would happen in 2018-19 or later.

[READ MORE: How the new CMS magnet plan works]

But CMS is also working to improve performance in its high-poverty schools, through programs such as the public-private Project LIFT and the district’s Beacon Initiative. The district is also working on better ways to gauge teacher quality and ensure that high-poverty schools get the rigorous instruction and skilled instructors those students need.

[READ MORE: The latest results from Project LIFT]

[READ MORE: CMS tackles the teacher equity challenge]

The Teach For America panel, held in honor of longtime CMS educator Leroy “Pop” Miller, is from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Dec. 15 at UNC Center City, 320 E. Ninth St. To register: newreality2.eventbrite.comTeach For America in Charlotte: Making segregated schools work | The Charlotte Observer:ore here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article118523323.html#storylink=cpy

Schools Matter: DeVos Will Make Democrat's Charter Plan Easier to Sell

Schools Matter: DeVos Will Make Democrat's Charter Plan Easier to Sell:

DeVos Will Make Democrat's Charter Plan Easier to Sell

A few years back Diane Ravitch was forced to admit openly what the opponents of testing accountability knew when No Child Left Behind became law: the ridiculous goal of 100% percent student proficiency in reading and math could never be met, and the fanciful imposition of such a pipe dream would wreak havoc across the entire K-12 education universe.

By the time Ravitch finally came around to acceding the dangerous fantasy that she had loyally promoted along with her fellow charter and voucher supporters at the Hoover Institution, almost half the schools in the U. S. had already been labeled as failures, and a reckless and corrupt corporate feeding frenzy had been set into motion by Ravitch's free market chums.  Tutoring companies were draining billions in federal dollars by cramming poor children for tests they would never pass; the scandal-ridden Reading First gang was shoving its antiquarian reading techniques nationwide to really bad effect; alternate teacher certification scams had been federally incentivized; charter schools, both virtual and physical, were springing up like mushrooms in cow paddies after a rain, and a whole new industry of sponsored fake education research by corporate foundation "think" tanks had become an acceptable occupation for under-employed academics.

During the seven years since Ravitch's lucrative conversion experience, Diane has made it clear that she maintains one foot solidly on the side of the corporate education reformers who brought us the NCLB disaster.  It took her until 2013 to admit her stubborn wrongheadedness on Common Core, even while maintaining even today her support for "voluntary" national standards--whatever that means.  Today she maintains her enthusiasm for shoveling Core Knowledge into the heads of Schools Matter: DeVos Will Make Democrat's Charter Plan Easier to Sell:

Politico: Where Betsy gives her money. | Fred Klonsky

Politico: Where Betsy gives her money. | Fred Klonsky:

Politico: Where Betsy gives her money.

Reposted from Politico’s Morning Education:

By Michael Stratford | 12/05/2016 10:00 AM EDT

With help from Caitlin Emma and Benjamin Wermund

WHERE BETSY AND DICK DEVOS HAVE FUNNELED THEIR PHILANTHROPY: Beyond the millions of dollars that the DeVos family has spent bankrolling Republican candidates across the country, Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick, also have given away tens of millions of dollars of their fortune through a philanthropic foundation they started in 1989.

– Much of the billionaire couple’s charitable giving reflects their conservative political views and Christian beliefs – and looking at where they’ve chosen to funnel money may also offer some clues about the causes that Betsy DeVos may seek to champion as Donald Trump’s education secretary.

– The foundation’s most recent tax forms, which were completed several weeks ago and obtained by POLITICO after a request, show that the Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation in 2015 doled out more than $10 million to a wide range of organizations – and pledged an additional $3.2 million in grants to be paid out in future years. Here are some of the highlights:

– The Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation approved $400,000 in funding for Loudspeaker Media Inc., helping former CNN anchor Campbell Brown launch her education site, The 74. Brown said recentlythat she’d recuse herself from editorial involvement of her site’s coverage of DeVos. A couple of days before that decision, however, Brown authored an op-ed for The 74 that praised DeVos. The foundation also gave $400,000 to Brown’s nonprofit, The Partnership for Educational Justice.

– Success Academy Charter Schools received $150,000 from the foundation in 2015, with another $150,000 approved for future payment. The New York City charter school chain’s founder, Eva Moskowitz, who was also Politico: Where Betsy gives her money. | Fred Klonsky:

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Victory celebrations at Standing Rock. Struggle continues. 

Tom Goldtooth

“This isn’t our first rodeo with the forces of genocide,” said Goldtooth, a great-grandfather with long black braids sticking out from under the hooded sweatshirt ...Capitalism feeds on unlimited growth. It’s like this monster that’s always hungry and thirsty and devouring the earth. That’s what our message is here: We have to live in balance; otherwise we’re going to perish.” -- Voices from Standing Rock

Jim Peterson, leader of a delegation of more than 120 WA veterans

“There is a lot of praying, singing, dancing, fireworks; the camp right now is kind of a madhouse. There are so many people showing up, busloads, it’s mass confusion. But there is so much love.” -- Seattle Times

Energy Transfer Partners & Sunoco Statement

"Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way." -- Business Wire

Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser Center for Strategic and International Studies

 “My guess is that Trump himself doesn’t have clue...Having this mishap occur before he is president is better than having it occur after he is president. I expect Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: WEEKEND QUOTABLES:

Boston students plan walkout in protest of Trump - The Boston Globe #bpswalkout

Boston students plan walkout in protest of Trump - The Boston Globe:

Boston students plan walkout Monday in protest of Trump

Students across Boston plan to walk out of their classes Monday afternoon, marching to the State House and City Hall with demands that Massachusetts leaders stand up to President-elect Donald Trump.

Organizers expect hundreds to join, including students from middle school, high school, and college. Participants will demand that Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Governor Charlie Baker protect public education and make sure everyone can feel safe in Massachusetts.

“We have to organize our young people,” said co-organizer Gabriela Pereira, a 16-year-old student at South Boston High School. “Just because we can’t vote doesn’t mean our voice doesn’t matter.”

She said many students are alarmed by Trump’s rhetoric, his policy proposals, and the people he has hired. Protesters are also asking local politicians to denounce Steve Bannon, Trump’s proposed chief White House strategist, and white supremacist movements.

Students participating in the walkout, who are scheduled to begin leaving their schools at 1 p.m., say they want to show their solidarity with undocumented immigrants, women, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals.

Protesters plan to gather on Boston Common at 2 p.m., march to the State House at 3, then rally at City Hall at 4, according to the group’s Facebook page.

This walkout follows two others earlier this year, organized by many of the same students, Pereira Boston students plan walkout in protest of Trump - The Boston Globe:

Report: Black Public School Students In NYC Arrested 10 Times More Often Than White Peers: Gothamist

Report: Black Public School Students In NYC Arrested 10 Times More Often Than White Peers: Gothamist:

Report: Black Public School Students In NYC Arrested 10 Times More Often Than White Peers

Black students at New York City's public schools are arrested at a rate 10 times higher than their white peers, according to a new report on school discipline from the New York Civil Liberties Union.

The report, which was released Friday, found that more than 60 percent of in-school arrests made in the first half of 2016 were of black students, even though less than 30 percent of students in NYC schools are black. The arrest rate for black students was more than 2.5 times the rate for Latinos.

White students make up 15 percent of the public school population but accounted for only 3 percent of arrests in the period examined. Latinos, who make up 40 percent of the population, accounted for 30 percent of arrests.

According to the NYPD, the total index crime in schools has decreased 35 percent over the last five years. That has corresponded with a decrease in enforcement actions. Arrest and summons rates, the NYCLU report found, dropped 37 percent and 10 percent, respectively, since 2015.

But critics say the rates of major disciplinary action are still far too high.

"As summonses and arrests of students go down and school safety goes up, it is clear that frequent reliance on aggressive discipline is unnecessary and especially harmful to black and Latino students," NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement. "We expect our schools to be safe and supportive for all our children."

The NYCLU found that although suspension rates have decreased, schools continue to lean heavily on suspensions instead of less aggressive disciplinary actions like parent conferences or detentions. Only 15 percent of suspensions issued during the 2015-2016 school year were for "serious infractions"—which under DOE rules require automatic suspension. The remaining 85 percent of suspensions were made at the schools' discretion.

Black students were issued suspensions at far higher rates than other students. Of the 37,647 suspensions issued in the 2015-16 school year, half were issued to black students. White students accounted for just 8 percent of suspensions during this period.

According to the DOE, suspensions of black students students decreased by 19 percent betweenReport: Black Public School Students In NYC Arrested 10 Times More Often Than White Peers: Gothamist: 

Randi Weingarten defends Ellison from anti-Semitism accusations | TheHill

Labor leader defends Ellison from anti-Semitism accusations | TheHill:

Labor leader defends Ellison from anti-Semitism accusations

The president of the American Federation of Teachers defended Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) on Saturday against those accusing the Democratic National Committee candidate of anti-Semitism.

“I can feel and smell anti Semitism. Keith Ellison is no anti-Semite and it is maddening when anyone who doesn't know him or his record makes that ugly accusation,” Randi Weingarten wrote in a Facebook post.

Ellison has been under fire as he mounts a bid to become the next DNC chairman after CNN unearthed comments the Minnesota lawmaker made several years ago defending Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Ellison said in a 2006 letter to Jewish groups reported by CNN that he had "long distanced myself from and rejected the Nation of Islam due to its propagation of bigoted and anti-Semitic ideas and statements, as well as other issues."

But Ellison has been under fire over other Labor leader defends Ellison from anti-Semitism accusations | TheHill:

Randi Weingarten - https://www.facebook.com/randi.weingarten.9?fref=nf

Ellison has now been officially swiftboated..Tapes cut and pasted; renounciations of the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan ignored. JJ Goldberg in the Forward goes thru every charge-- not because he is a Keith supporter, but because he understands the longterm implications of this particular swift-boating. He concludes " if the image of Ellison that’s been laid out for us in the past few days were remotely true, any effort to stop him would be justified. But it isn’t."

I am a proud American Jew and a progressive Zionist who practices my religion; tries to be in shul every Friday for Shabbat, and who believes in a 2 state solution. I taught in Crown Heights in the 1990s during the black-Jewish tensions. I grew up going to Camp Ramah, the camp sponsored by the Conservative Jewish movement, and read everything i could about the Holocaust. My best friend and my brother in law's parents are (were) survivors and etched in my brain is the fact my home being pelted with eggs- because we were Jewish- when I was a youngster in New City,NY-long before Rockland County became as Jewish as it is now.

And btw, my partner is a Rabbi.

Now that my Jewish and Israel demographics out of the way...

Oops. One more factoid. I am a DNC member and I support Keith Ellison for DNC chair

I can feel and smell anti Semitism. Keith Ellison is no anti-Semite and it is maddening when anyone who doesn't know him or his record makes that ugly accusation.

Keith is an agent of change-a fierce fighter for working folk and someone who understands that one has to both fight against bigotry and hate and fight for the economic and educational opportunities America's working families need. That this is a both/and struggle for justice and opportunity- not an either/or.He gets the anxiety and frustration borne out of globalization and deindustrialization and that the Democratic Party must organize ground up.

Keith called me after DeVos was nominated- he got immediately what an existential threat she represents to educational opportunity in America.

That is just who he is..He walks his walk for working families..

So let's have a fair discussion about DNC chair-but don't dismiss Keith on ugly and specious charges that are easily refuted simply by looking at his record.

There's a lot of anti Semitism-and Islamaphobia in the world. Dont pretend it exists in Keith Ellison's heart or soul.

No, the Keith Ellison Tape Isn’t Anti-Israel — and Shouldn’t Torpedo His Democratic Run

It looks as though opposition is mounting, perhaps approaching a critical mass, against the bid by Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to become chair of the…

FORWARD.COM

Randi Weingarten - https://www.facebook.com/randi.weingarten.9?fref=nf

Wendy Lecker: Secretary of Education designate Betsy DeVos’ crusade against public education - Wait What?

Secretary of Education designate Betsy DeVos’ crusade against public education (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?:

Secretary of Education designate Betsy DeVos’ crusade against public education (By Wendy Lecker)

First published in the Samford Advocate, Wendy Lecker lays out the details about Secretary of Education designate Betsy DeVosas anti-public education legacy.  Lecker writes;

President-elect Donald Trump selected Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos as his candidate for Secretary of Education. The DeVos nomination should alarm anyone who values public education. First, she is wholly unqualified to be Secretary of Education. She has no education degree or background, and has never worked in, attended or sent her children to public school. More worrisome, she and her husband have been on a 20-plus year crusade to eliminate public education.

Betsy DeVos freely admits that she buys political influence. As The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer wrote, DeVos declared that she expects a “return on our investment” in donating to politicians. The return she seeks is the creation a conservative Christian government. For example, DeVos and her husband bankrolled the successful 2004 ballot referendum in Michigan banning gay marriage.

Among the DeVos’ long-running crusades in their quest to “christianize” America is their campaign to destroy public education. DeVos pushed Michigan’s first charter school law in 1993. As noted in a 1996 Detroit Metro Times article, while the DeVos’ ultimate aim was to abolish public Secretary of Education designate Betsy DeVos’ crusade against public education (By Wendy Lecker) - Wait What?:

Eleven-Year-Old's Suspension for Butter Knife Exposes Irrational Discipline Once More - Education Law Prof Blog

Education Law Prof Blog:

Eleven-Year-Old's Suspension for Butter Knife Exposes Irrational Discipline Once More

According to local reports and the parents, an eleven-year-old honor roll student in Pembroke Pines, Florida, was suspended for six days when she used a children's knife to cut a peach and share it with a classmates.  According to the family, the knife was as dull as a butter knife and was part of a set that looked something like this:

The girl's mother said that the knife is safe even for babies: “This is a set of a spoon, fork, and knife [is] for toddlers— one-year-old[s]. It is made for children to learn how to eat properly. She's used it since she was baby.”

With the media attention and the parents pushing back, the school reduced the suspension to three days, but they maintain the initial suspension was valid and it will remain on her record.

Unfortunately, this story is like countless others I describe in Ending Zero Tolerance: The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline. It is yet another example of the intolerability of zero tolerance policies and school officials refusing to consider very basic facts.  On their face, the facts reveal 1) no real weapon; 2) no intent to break a rule; 3) no threat or danger to anyone; and 4) everyday benign behavior by a preteen.  Based on these facts, it is far from clear that there is any legitimate basis upon which to suspend the student.  It would appear that the basis for suspension is nothing more than "those are the rules."  

That justification should be absurd enough on its face, but let me make it a bit clearer.  Suppose that a school adopted the following rule: "students are prohibited from bringing black ink pens to school."  There might be a good reason for the rule, such as the machine that the school uses to grade exams cannot distinguish students' black ink from that of the printed language on handouts.  When students use black ink, it throws the whole grading system off.  Thus, I would allow that schools could even take away those black ink pens for the day or, to Education Law Prof Blog:

Betsy DeVos: School Choice, the Establishment Clause, Religious Liberty, and Public Education | janresseger

Betsy DeVos: School Choice, the Establishment Clause, Religious Liberty, and Public Education | janresseger:

Betsy DeVos: School Choice, the Establishment Clause, Religious Liberty, and Public Education

According to Benjamin Wermund of POLITICO, the religious views of Betsy DeVos, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, are closely connected to her philosophy of school choice.  Wermund shares a transcript and video clips of a 15-year-old interview in which Dick and Betsy DeVos attribute their promotion of school choice and privatization through publicly funded school vouchers to their Christian values and their desire to “advance God’s Kingdom.”

Betsy DeVos explains: “We both believe that competition and choices make everyone better and that ultimately if the system that prevails in the United States today had more competition—there were more choices for people to make freely—that all of the schools would become better as a result.” Wermund continues: “However, the DeVoses also say public schools have ‘displaced’ the church in terms of importance.” Wermund quotes Dick DeVos, Betsy’s husband, who was also part of the interview: “The church—which ought to be in our view far more central to the life of the community—has been displaced by the school as the center for activity, the center for what goes on in the community.  It is certainly our hope that churches would continue, no matter what the environment—whether there’s government funding some day through tax credits, or vouchers, or some other mechanism or whatever it may be—that more and more churches will get more and more active and engaged in education.”

In the interview, Betsy DeVos is asked why the DeVoses have not spent their philanthropic dollars to support religious schools themselves.  She replies that they, “want to reform the whole system to bring ‘greater Kingdom gain… We could give every single penny we have, everybody in this room could give every single penny they had and it wouldn’t begin to touch what is currently spent on education every year in this country and what is in many cases… not well spent.'”

Despite that in the 2002 decision in the case of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the U.S. Supreme Court permitted the use of publicly funded vouchers at religious schools as long as the voucher is given to the family and not directly to the school, endorsement by government of religious institutions is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.  Provisions in a number of state constitutions also explicitly reject the expenditure of public dollars for sectarian institutions, including for tuition vouchers and tuition tax credits.

Here is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to Betsy DeVos: School Choice, the Establishment Clause, Religious Liberty, and Public Education | janresseger:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Turning Tragedy Into Opportunity-The Creation of Fordham's Bronx Course and the #BronxHistoryCollaborative

With A Brooklyn Accent: Turning Tragedy Into Opportunity-The Creation of Fordham's Bronx Course and the #BronxHistoryCollaborative:

Turning Tragedy Into Opportunity-The Creation of Fordham's Bronx Course and the #BronxHistoryCollaborative

Last Fall there were a series of racial incidents at Fordham that traumatized the University community. The administration responded with powerful statements that condemned what took place and reaffirmed Fordham's commitment to becoming a diverse and caring community, but it was the student response that I found most gratifying. Students in my classes, including captains of 3 important teams- Garrick Lloyd Mayweather, Mikela Ryan and Danielle Rowe-, came up with a "Zero Tolerance for Racism campaign, complete with armbands and stickers which gave students, faculty and staff a way of affirming their support and solidarity with those targeted by the attacks with visual symbols. At the same time, another group of students decided the University needed to address the underlying layer of contempt for the Bronx and its people that helped fuel the incidents and asked me to create a new course on Bronx History and Culture. Within two weeks, with their help, I was able to create a syllabus for the course which was approved by the appropriate committees and introduced in the Fall of 2016

It has now been nearly three months since the Bronx Course opened its doors and its impact has been profound.With the help of educators involved in NYC's test exempt high schools- the Consortium Schools- we were able to have sections of my Bronx course taught simultaneously in two Bronx High Schools with provisions made to bring students in those course onto campus to meet with my students, and students in my class to come to the high schools to be interviewed by their students or make presentations on their research. . At the same time, the Bronx course alowed me to reconnect with two of the Bronx's and the nation's greatest principals- Paul Cannon and Luis E Torres- and give Fordham students the opportuity to see how they had turned their schools into centers of energy and creativity in some of the Bronx's poorest communities.

And this boundary shattering experience will only continue to With A Brooklyn Accent: Turning Tragedy Into Opportunity-The Creation of Fordham's Bronx Course and the #BronxHistoryCollaborative: