Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty' | TheHill

Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty' | TheHill

Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty'

The head of the teachers union suing the Department of Education is slamming Secretary Betsy DeVos, calling her mismanagement of the public service student loan forgiveness program a “travesty” and a “betrayal” to millions of Americans.

Randi Weingarten, who is president of the American Federation of Teachers, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against DeVos. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and is brought by eight union members along with Weingarten and the union itself.

“What Betsy Devos has done is a travesty and a betrayal,” Weingarten, an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s handing of the program, told Hill.TV on Tuesday.

An Education Department spokesperson declined to comment, but called the lawsuit "nothing more than the typical political grandstanding from the union." 

The federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007.

The program promises to forgive the remaining balance of federal student loan debt for graduates who have made at least 120 payments and work in a qualifying job for the government or a nonprofit. This includes teachers, firefighters and nurses among other public service workers.

Weingarten emphasized that the current program is in such disarray, that it violates both federal law and the Constitution.

“Why are they not actually saying, ‘wait a second’ — you paid for 10 years, we’re going to find every way to get your loan forgiven,'” she said. “Instead it’s obstacle after obstacle after CONTINUE READING: Teacher's union head calls DeVos handling of student loan forgiveness program 'a travesty' | TheHill

Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges - The New York Times

Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges - The New York Times

Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges

WASHINGTON — Dream Center Education Holdings, a subsidiary of a Los Angeles-based megachurch, had no experience in higher education when it petitioned the federal Education Department to let it take over a troubled chain of for-profit trade schools.

But the organization’s chairman, Randall K. Barton, told the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, that the foundation wanted to “help people live better lives.”

The purchase was blessed despite Dream Center’s lack of experience and questionable finances by an administration favorable to for-profit education. But barely a year later, the company tumbled into insolvency, dozens of its colleges closed abruptly and thousands of students were left with no degree after paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.

Making matters worse, the college is accused of enrolling new students and taking their taxpayer-supported financial aid dollars even after some of its campuses had lost their accreditation, which rendered their credits worthless

Company emails, documents and recordings show that part of why Dream Center kept going is that it thought the Education Department, which under Ms. DeVos has rolled back regulations on for-profit education, would try to keep it from failing. Mr. Barton emailed other Dream Center executives that the department’s head of higher education policy — Diane Auer Jones, a former executive and lobbyist for for-profit colleges — had pulled strings to help the company’s schools in their effort to regain a seal of approval from an accreditor, despite their perilous positions.

In another instance, Dream Center’s chief operating officer told faculty at an endangered campus that Ms. Jones was changing departmental regulations to help the schools obtain accreditation retroactively.

Although the Trump administration did eventually cut off federal aid to the chain of colleges and precipitate their collapse, Democrats say the department failed to respond to warning signs.

Representative Robert C. Scott, a Virginia Democrat who is the chairman of the House Education Committee, unveiled a trove of CONTINUE READING: Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges - The New York Times

Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies & Connections to the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Students of Color with Disabilities

Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies & Connections to the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Students of Color with Disabilities

Today, July 23, the Commission released "Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies & Connections to the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Students of Color with Disabilities." Join Chair Catherine E. Lhamon & Commissioner Karen K. Narasaki for a conference call on the report at 10:45 am EDT. Dial-in: 800-353-6461, conf. ID 7829324. See just-released report at: https://bit.ly/2xJve5Z #CivilRights #USCCRReports

Beyond Suspensions: Examining School Discipline Policies & Connections to the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Students of Color with Disabilities

How the 'School Choice' Movement Has its Roots in Racism - Citizen Truth

How the 'School Choice' Movement Has its Roots in Racism - Citizen Truth

How the ‘School Choice’ Movement Has its Roots in Racism

“We have experimented educationally on children who are poor, who are of color, who go to underfunded schools. We come up with ways of teaching them that are experiments and have absolutely no kind of basis in research.”

Charter schools and the “school choice” movement have become a major part of the fabric of the American education system in recent years, but what are the origins of these institutions and this educational ideology?

In America, there are about 3 million students attending more than 7,000 charter schools around the country, and with the current prevailing political and economic tendencies in the United States, it seems highly likely that this number is only going to continue to grow.

Education and the Trump Administration

During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump promised that if elected, he would be the “nation’s biggest cheerleader for school choice,” and has already made many bold moves on this front, including appointing school choice advocate Betsy DeVos as his Secretary of Education. In May 2017, DeVos was quoted as saying that the goal of Trump’s administration is to enact “the most ambitious expansion of education choice in our nation’s history.”

DeVos has been one of the most vocal champions of the “school choice” movement, pushing all sorts of legislation on the topic, including most recently a federal tax credit that would provide 5 billion dollars in federal money to fund private school scholarships. The plan has faced opposition from both conservatives and liberals who see it as a voucher program by a different name and a way to siphon public funds away from struggling public schools.

Growth of Charter Schools

Many cities around the country have begun to favor charter schools over traditional public schools, and most of the cities with high rates of enrollment in charter schools are financially strapped areas that are dealing with economic turmoil and a fractured public education system.

According to the Key Facts About Charter Schools publication, in Flint, 55 percent of students in the district attend charter schools, and in Detroit, 53 percent of students are educated at charter  CONTINUE READING: How the 'School Choice' Movement Has its Roots in Racism - Citizen Truth

John Thompson: Corporate, data-driven education has been an 'Epic' failure

Corporate, data-driven education has been an 'Epic' failure

Corporate, data-driven education has been an ‘Epic’ failure

Growing up in Oklahoma, physical evidence of corruption was always in plain sight. Riding down the highway, my father would tell me how the road’s surface just changed from one type of asphalt to another because that was all the contractor’s bribes paid for.

When I became old enough to work blue collar jobs, I realized how the disregard for safety laws repeatedly put workers like me in life-threatening positions. On my first professional job, my supervisor told me about the time he asked a consultant, “What does two plus two equal?”

The consultant locked the door, pulled down the window shades, and whispered, “What do you want it to equal?”

Today’s scandals aren’t as readily apparent as the crimes of the past. They are hidden in “the cloud,” in complex computer systems. For that reason, the rapidly unfolding Epic Charter School scandal is both a case study in the dangers of today’s data-driven economy and the failure of corporate school reform.

When I became a teacher, corruption seemed nonexistent in public education (and today’s OKCPS clearly respects the law.) Back then, schools didn’t seem to engage in more or less gamesmanship with numbers than similar institutions. In my first teaching jobs, I was warned about the danger of not complying with special education law. In contrast to more typical violations, breaking disability law could cost your teaching license as well as your job.

Twenty-something years later, I sought to return from retirement and was hired at Seeworth Academy, a now-closed charter school that is being investigated for its special education practices. I was frequently warned than any questioning of special education procedures would result in immediate termination.

Education reforms open door for subtle corruption

Even as the public face of overt corruption in the old industrial world receded, the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 spurred new statistical tricks so that two plus two equals “transformative gains.” It had always been clear that attendance and graduation CONTINUE READING: Corporate, data-driven education has been an 'Epic' failure

Raj Chetty Believes His New Harvard Institute Will Re-Energize the American Dream | janresseger

Raj Chetty Believes His New Harvard Institute Will Re-Energize the American Dream | janresseger

Raj Chetty Believes His New Harvard Institute Will Re-Energize the American Dream

Raj Chetty, the superstar, big-data economist, has returned to Harvard from Stanford to establish his own Opportunity Insights research and policy institute, a project seeded with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. Chetty’s research has created an Opportunity Atlas, which maps neighborhoods of opportunity and other neighborhoods where children are unable to move up the economic ladder.

In an objective and suitably skeptical profile for The Atlantic, Gareth Cook explores the goal of Chetty’s project: “Dozens of the nation’s elite colleges have more children of the 1 percent than from families in the bottom 60 percent of family income. A black boy born to a wealthy family is more than twice as likely to end up poor as a white boy from a wealthy family. Chetty has established Big Data as a moral force in the American debate. Now he wants to do more than change our understanding of America—he wants to change America itself. His new Harvard-based institute, called Opportunity Insights, is explicitly aimed at applying his findings in cities around the country and demonstrating that social scientists, despite a discouraging track record, are able to fix the problems they articulate in journals.”

How does Chetty envision his project will work? “The Opportunity Atlas has a fractal quality. Some regions of the United States look better than high-mobility countries such as Denmark, while others look more like a developing country.  The Great Plains unfurl as a sea of blue, and then the eye is caught by an island of red—a mark of the miseries inflicted on the Oglala Lakota by European settlers. The stark differences recapitulate themselves on smaller and smaller scales as you zoom in. It’s common to see opposite extremes of opportunity within easy walking distance of each other, even in two neighborhoods that long-term residents would consider quite similar. To find a cure for what ails America, Chetty will need to CONTINUE READING: Raj Chetty Believes His New Harvard Institute Will Re-Energize the American Dream | janresseger

Jersey Jazzman: Camden, Charter Schools, and a Very Big Lie

Jersey Jazzman: Camden, Charter Schools, and a Very Big Lie

Camden, Charter Schools, and a Very Big Lie

Let's get back to the deeply flawed editorial from this week's Star-Ledger that I wrote about yesterday. In that post, I explained how "creaming" -- the practice of taking only those students who are likely to score high on standardized tests -- is likely a major contributor to the "success" of certain charter schools.

Charter school advocates do not like discussing this issue. The charter brand is based on the notion that certain operators have discovered some special method for getting better educational outcomes from students -- particularly students who are in disadvantaged communities -- than public district schools. But if they are creaming the higher-performing kids, there's probably nothing all that special about charters after all.

It's important to understand this debate about charters and creaming if you want to understand what's happening now in Camden's schools.

Because Camden was going to be the proof point that finally showed the creaming naysayers were wrong with a new hybrid model of schooling: the renaissance school. These schools would be run by the same organizations that managed charter schools in Newark and Philadelphia. The district would turn over dilapidated school properties to charter management organizations (CMOs); they would, in turn, renovate the facilities, using funds the district claimed it didn't have and would never get.

But most importantly: these schools would be required to take all of the children within the CONTINUE READING: Jersey Jazzman: Camden, Charter Schools, and a Very Big Lie

Does high stakes testing lead to drill and kill, aka, poor instructional practices or is testing necessary to provide accountability and assure equity for poor students of color? | Ed In The Apple

Does high stakes testing lead to drill and kill, aka, poor instructional practices or is testing necessary to provide accountability and assure equity for poor students of color? | Ed In The Apple

Does high stakes testing lead to drill and kill, aka, poor instructional practices or is testing necessary to provide accountability and assure equity for poor students of color?

Education in New York State is edging towards a crossroads: will the next commissioner and the Board of Regents begin to challenge high stakes testing, namely federally mandated grades three to eight testing and the regents examinations required for high school graduation, or, will the supporters of equity for poor children of color fight to retain testing for accountability purposes and challenge inequitable funding across the state?

On one side the opt-out supporters: parents and advocates from high wealth predominantly white schools and districts, advocates, and some members of the Board of Regents, on the other Michael Rebell and other advocates urging reform of state funding formula that are among the most inequitable in the nation as well as civil rights organizations arguing that only through testing can schools and school districts be held accountable for disparate outcomes.

Testing has a long, long history; the regents examinations began in the nineteenth century and were effectively the tracking tool for the worlds of college or work. The majority of students did not take regents exams, they took much lower level competence tests and received a local diploma, In my school, generally looked upon as a high achieving school only a quarter of students received a regents diploma. In the early 2000’s I was on a Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) team at Taft High School in the Bronx, an all minority school with 2000 plus students, I asked, “How many students received a regent diploma?” The answer was five. I said “5%?” No, five.

The students earning a regents diploma were overwhelmingly white, the students CONTINUE READING: Does high stakes testing lead to drill and kill, aka, poor instructional practices or is testing necessary to provide accountability and assure equity for poor students of color? | Ed In The Apple

Great Books Great Reading Experiences Garn Press

Garn Press

Great Books Great Reading Experiences Garn Press

GarnPress on Tweeter @GarnPress   WEBSITE:  garnpress.com

At Garn we promise to continue publishing great books and providing great reading opportunities for readers that encourage all of us to be brave, be fearless, and not forget to imagine the extraordinary opportunities of being human in these most challenging times.

Garn Press publishes award-winning nonfiction that explores compelling ideas and arguments based on primary research and investigative reporting ignored by mainstream media. We’re actively supporting writers of conscience who offer original research based perspectives on the most pressing issues of our day including: education policy and reform, climate change, social justice gun violence and many other critical factors jeopardizing social, economic, and environmental sustainability. In addition to books Garn press is publishing news articles by many renowned educators, artists, and scientists. But at Garn we do not consider this enough. We’re also committed to nurturing the imagination and human spirit by publishing great novels and poetry.

Garn’s award winning novelists and poets share this ideal, and all the fiction books published by Garn – whether mysteries, fantasies, or historical novels -- are written not only to entertain, but also to raise serious questions about time, memory and whether what we see – in life as well as in the mirror – is what is really what is occurring. At Garn we promise to continue publishing great books and providing great reading opportunities for readers that encourage all of us to be brave, be fearless, and not forget to imagine the extraordinary opportunities of being human in these most challenging times. We hope the books we publish will in some small way contribute to changing and saving the world. Looking forward to meeting you in the pages of a Garn Press book. They make great presents!

Great Books Great Reading Experiences Garn Press

Garn Press Posts in Education

 Great Books Great Reading Experiences Garn Press

Great Books Great Reading Experiences Garn Press

Peter Greene: The Problem With Comparisons In Education

The Problem With Comparisons In Education

The Problem With Comparisons In Education

Which is the best movie: Ghostbusters, Singin' In The Rain, Casablanca, or Avengers: Endgame?

It depends, of course, on how we choose to compare them. Based on level of romance? On the happiest ending? Best dancing? Most money made? Best use of Sigourney Weaver? Criteria make all the difference. But it's not just the criteria; it's the problems with criteria that naturally emerge from the mandate to compare.

One of the driving features of modern education reform has been the mandate to compare. Fans of free market education want to be able to compare schools; several reform programs targeted schools that ranked in the bottom five percent. The New Teacher Project (TNTP) made a huge splash in 2009 with "The Widget Effect" arguing that we should compare teachers and make staffing and pay decisions based on the results. Ranking schools is as important to US News as swimsuits are to Sports Illustrated.

There are problems applying comparisons to education.

Comparisons are not measurements. Pat may be ranked the tallest or shortest student in class, but either way, knowing Pat's ranking does not tell me how tall Pat actually is. "Most improved" may make good CONTINUE READING: The Problem With Comparisons In Education

MSDE releases digital devices safety guidelines, receives backlash | Spotlight | stardem.com

MSDE releases digital devices safety guidelines, receives backlash | Spotlight | stardem.com

MSDE releases digital devices safety guidelines, receives backlash

BALTIMORE — The Maryland State Department of Education, Monday, July 1, released a long-anticipated list of health and safety practices for digital device use by children in schools.

The list, which came after a push by parents and lawmakers to protect children against the effects of excessive exposure to device screens, offered several safety suggestions.

The suggestions included implementing device time limits, encouraging students to monitor their postures and maintaining even lighting to “ensure minimal contrast between device screen light and classroom lighting.”

After a Maryland law was passed in May 2018, the MSDE had until July 1, 2019, to produce and make public the list of safety suggestions for local school districts to consider.

The list’s recent release on the MSDE website prompted backlash from some of the law’s supporters, as well as national advocates. They took to social media to share their disapproval.

Cindy Eckard, the Maryland mother who was a leading force in the law’s introduction and passage, called the suggestion list “very buried.” She also said it was “embarrassingly short on readily available research.”

Eckard said the release “could’ve been more responsible, it could’ve been well researched, and it could’ve had some real teeth behind it.”

“It could’ve provided some actual medical underpinnings other than one or another pediatrician sharing CONTINUE READING: MSDE releases digital devices safety guidelines, receives backlash | Spotlight | stardem.com

John Merrow: Why We Have Public Schools

Why We Have Public Schools

Why We Have Public Schools

Why do we have public schools? Prior to the pervasive growth and ubiquity of the internet, it was easy to answer that question because a school’s objectives were clear and rarely questioned: 1) teach,2) socialize and 3) provide custodial care. Today, two of the three do not apply, and that means big trouble. Let me address them in order.

Providing access to knowledge is one of three historical justifications for schools. Basically, parents had to send their children to schools because the knowledge was stored there, in textbooks and in the heads of teachers. However, today’s young people swim in a sea of information, 24/7. Of course, children need teachers to help them learn to read and master numbers, but, beyond that, a new approach is required. Young people must learn how to deal with the flood of information that surrounds them. They need guidance separating wheat from chaff. They need help formulating questions, and they need to develop the habit of seeking answers, not regurgitating them. They should be going to schools where they are expected and encouraged to discover, build and cooperate. Instead, most of them CONTINUE READING: Why We Have Public Schools

'We Should Send Her Back,' Democrat Says of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

'We Should Send Her Back,' Democrat Says of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

'WE SHOULD SEND HER BACK,' DEMOCRAT SAYS OF EDUCATION SECRETARY BETSY DEVOS

Senator Debbie Stabenow took a page from the president's political playbook on Monday, repeating a controversial phrase used by Donald Trump to say that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos should be sent back to her home state of Michigan, a suggestion that she should be removed from her post in Donald Trump's cabinet.

"I really wish she was not from Michigan," Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, said of DeVos while discussing the state's school system at the NAACP Convention in Detroit on Monday. "I think we should send her back."

Stabenow's use of Trump's words was met with cheers from the audience and came as the president has continued to double down and defend his racist tweet that said four minority members of Congress should "go back" to the "totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."

"We know that far too many workers can't find jobs to support their families, too many of our children languish in inadequate, ill-equipped schools," Stabenow continued. "Thank you, Betsy DeVos."

DeVos has drawn the ire of Democrats ever since the secretary was confirmed in February 2017 for her lack of experience in education, her advocacy for school choice and charter schools over public schools and her family's wealthy history.

Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib, one of the four freshmen lawmakers who was the target of Trump's racist tweet sent on July 14, also spoke at the NAACP convention, vowing to continue pushing back and fighting politically until the president is removed from office.

"I'm not going nowhere, not until I impeach this president," Tlaib said.

Earlier Monday, Trump again ridiculed "The Squad," the progressive newcomers who Trump CONTINUE READING: 'We Should Send Her Back,' Democrat Says of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos

Education groups accuse AG's office of 'harassment' | The Daily Gazette

Education groups accuse AG's office of 'harassment' | The Daily Gazette

Education groups accuse AG's office of 'harassment'
Over two dozen advocacy groups have been subpoenaed in statewide education funding lawsuit

Over two dozen education advocacy groups have been subpoenaed by Attorney General Tish James' office in an ongoing lawsuit challenging New York's education funding – subpoenas the groups argue detract from their core missions of serving students, parents and educators.

The groups are all member organizations of New Yorkers for Students' Educational Rights (NYSER), the lead plaintiff alleging the state's education funding system is depriving students in Schenectady and other districts across the state of a basic education.

In what an attorney for the plaintiffs called an “effort at harassment and delay,” the attorney general's office has sought extensive records from the 29 NYSER member organizations – groups that range from the influential New York State School Boards Association, New York State Parent Teachers Association and New York State Council of School Superintendents to small advocacy groups with staffs of two or three people and a handful of New York City's local community education councils.

The groups, which argue they are not party to the underlying lawsuit but rather members of NYSER, have objected to the subpoenas as overly broad, burdensome and seeking irrelevant information. In interviews, leaders of some of the groups said if they were forced to fully comply with the subpoenas, their education-focused advocacy work would be diminished. Subpoenas are a legal tool used in lawsuits to compel the production of documents and testimony.

“Not only would it obviously detract from our core mission, but the time and attention (to comply with the subpoena), given the number of staff people we have, would bring things to a halt for a substantial period of time,” said David Little, executive director of the Rural Schools Association of New York State, an organization with a three-person staff.

Little estimated hiring outside lawyers and experts to comply with the subpoena CONTINUE READING: Education groups accuse AG's office of 'harassment' | The Daily Gazette

Jan Resseger: Eight Essential Facts About Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jan Resseger: Eight Essential Facts About Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Jan Resseger: Eight Essential Facts About Charter Schools

The Charter Industry has led a sterling marketing campaign to persuade the public that they are public schools, that they are far better than “traditional” public schools, and that they are hotbeds of innovation.

None of this is true. They are privately managed schools. They receive public money but they are not public schools. Other than those that select their students, they do not get higher test scores than real public schools, and many are far worse. The only “innovation” that charters can claim is “no excuses” discipline, which looks like schools of a century ago.

Here are Jan’s facts you should know:

If you value the role of public schools—locally governed, publicly owned and operated—whose mission is to serve the needs and protect the rights of every child, you can be more supportive if you know the facts about charter schools. The public schools across the United States enroll 50 million students, 90 percent.  Charter schools suck money out of state budgets and public school districts while they enroll only 6 percent of American students. We all need to be actively refuting the myths and calling politicians on their errors when they betray their ignorance about the problems posed by the privatization of public education.

Here are eight facts to keep in mind:

1. While their promoters try to brand them as “public charter schools,” charter schools are a form of school privatization. Charter schools are private contractors whose expenses are paid with tax dollars. Their boards operate privately—very often without transparency.
2. For-profit charter schools are permitted in only two states—Arizona and Wisconsin. In the 43 other states whose laws permit CONTINUE READING: Jan Resseger: Eight Essential Facts About Charter Schools | Diane Ravitch's blog

Multiple boards oversee Epic Charter Schools

Multiple boards oversee Epic Charter Schools

Multiple boards oversee Epic Charter Schools

(Editor’s note: This story was authored by Jennifer Palmer of Oklahoma Watch and appears here in accordance with the non-profit journalism organization’s republishing terms.)

In his request for a search warrant, a law enforcement agent described Epic Charter Schools as being set up a decade ago as a profit-generating “scheme.”

And he described the school’s co-founders as deeply involved in alleged embezzlement of state funds and obtaining money under false pretenses – such as personally recruiting “ghost students” to boost the school’s funding and allowing students who completed no work or moved out of state on the school’s rolls.

All of which begs the question: Who is responsible for oversight of Epic? And have they done enough to be a check on the state’s largest virtual school?

Co-founders David Chaney and Ben Harris, in a joint statement, say the allegations are false.

“We will continue to cooperate with investigators, as we have throughout the history of our school. We are confident the facts will once again vindicate our team,” their joint statement reads.

The allegations outlined in the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation’s search warrant have drawn the attention of the highest-ranking state officials. Gov. Kevin Stitt has asked to be briefed on the investigation, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister called the allegations “extremely serious, disturbing.” On Friday afternoon, Stitt and Hofmeister announced they have requested an investigative audit on Epic and its related companies by the state Auditor & Inspector, looking at the past three years.

What will ultimately result from the audit and OSBI investigation is unclear. The accounts of alleged wrongdoing in the affidavit and the intense news coverage have put pressure on CONTINUE READING: Multiple boards oversee Epic Charter Schools

OSBI search warrant affidavit