Two critical education issues for the Connecticut legislature By Anne Manusky - Wait What?

Two critical education issues for the Connecticut legislature By Anne Manusky - Wait What?:

Two critical education issues for the Connecticut legislature By Anne Manusky

Education advocate Anne Manusky weighs in in two extremely important issues that the Connecticut General Assembly should address this legislative session.  Her commentary piece originally appeared in the CT Mirror.  You can read and comment on the column at: http://ctviewpoints.org/2017/01/10/two-critical-education-issues-for-the-connecticut-legislature/

Two critical education issues for the Connecticut legislature By Anne Manusky

From my perspective we have two critical points in the current Connecticut education crisis that must be dealt with first during the General Assembly’s 2017 session: One, the Common Core State Standards – they are developmentally inappropriate for many of our children, especially those in the elementary years. And Two: Measuring our children using the new state mastery test, which lacks psychometric test validation and reliability.

It takes time for children to reach certain levels of development  (i.e. vision development is not typically fully acquired until between the age of 8 and 10; and a child’s first baby tooth will typically fall out about the age of 6 or 7). Years of child development theorists’ research,  seem to have been thrown aside when children’s education standards were proposed to be redrawn by the National Governor’s Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers.

Why this “education” without allowing for typical development? Pushing children to mentally do things they are incapable of is a form of child abuse.  The Connecticut Core Standards are in need of major overhaul and return to developmental appropriateness.

As for measuring academic progress, the Smarter Balanced Assessments are purported to use the Connecticut Core Standards to determine academic mastery levels of our public 

Two critical education issues for the Connecticut legislature By Anne Manusky - Wait What?:

Big Worries About Betsy DeVos - The New York Times

Big Worries About Betsy DeVos - The New York Times:

Big Worries About Betsy DeVos

Lilli Carré

The director of the Office of Government Ethics, the nonpartisan agency charged with vetting the financial disclosures of cabinet nominees for potential conflicts of interest, sent an extraordinary letter to Senate Democratic leaders late last week. Never in the four-decade history of the agency, he wrote, have ethics officials felt such “undue pressure ... to rush through these important reviews,” leaving “some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings.”

As the Senate races forward with confirmation hearings this week, the spottiest disclosures have come from wealthy private-sector nominees with no governing experience and many potential conflicts. In other words, the people most in need of a complete ethics review.

Exhibit A is Betsy DeVos, a billionaire and education lobbyist who is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary. Ms. DeVos’s finances are a tangle that could take weeks to investigate. Despite that, Republicans had set her confirmation hearing for Wednesday. But late Monday night, they pushed it back to next Tuesday.

People who have seen her financial disclosures so far say that Ms. DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos, have investments in some 250 companies registered to a single Grand Rapids, Mich., address, entities whose investments could take weeks for the ethics office to research. Already, though, there are reports that the DeVoses are indirect investors in Social Finance Inc., a private company that refinances student loans. Private lenders like Social Finance are banned from most of the direct student lending market; their lobbyists have already written to the Trump transition team pitching to change that. That’s only one potential conflict. What if her family has holdings in educational technology or for-profit colleges? Given time, the ethics office will learn this, and reach an agreement with Ms. DeVos to sell off assets that could pose a conflict.

Beyond erasing concerns about her many possible financial conflicts, Ms. DeVos also faces a big challenge in explaining the damage she’s done to public education in her home state, Michigan. She has poured money into Big Worries About Betsy DeVos - The New York Times:

CURMUDGUCATION: Should Devos Make This Argument for Choice?

CURMUDGUCATION: Should Devos Make This Argument for Choice?:

Should Devos Make This Argument for Choice?

Rick Hess (American Enterprise Institute) is using the occasion of the DeVos nomination to make some points about choice as a reform strategy. This is fair-- all of us in the education debates are both agitated about the nomination and aware that, for at least these fifteen minutes, American political discourse is actually paying attention to education. So we're all busy articulating our thoughts about the subject; there's no reason reformsters shouldn't do the same.

So Hess is at National Review with "What Betsy DeVos Should Tell the Senate," a four-part argument for choice that is his dream speech for DeVos, a Hess-crafted argument for choice programs. As is often the case, while I disagree with almost everything he has to say, I appreciate his ability to articulate it clearly so that I can more clearly understand where he goes wrong. So let's look at the four acts of this failed play:

First, teaching and learning are natural, intuitive acts. They aren’t the exotic product of some mysterious alchemy.

There are, of course, other possibilities that are neither gut-based or alchemic. For instance, teaching is a craft that requires training and experience and a serious background of knowledge. Hess's point that "humans are natural learners" with brains "hard-wired" to understand and learn and know is absolutely legit. His observation that "adults are predisposed to share knowledge, interests and skills" might a bit more open to debate. His implication that, therefor, teaching is no big deal and probably anyone can do it (as it doesn't require arcane training or special setting) is arguably false.

His bigger point is that "systems, structures, and bureaucratic rules are getting in the way--" and oh my God, I just realized that Rick Hess of the conservative AEI is actually a closet hippy! Fight the CURMUDGUCATION: Should Devos Make This Argument for Choice?:

On Writing Workshop, Cognitive Overload, and Creative Writing | radical eyes for equity

On Writing Workshop, Cognitive Overload, and Creative Writing | radical eyes for equity:

On Writing Workshop, Cognitive Overload, and Creative Writing

“The cause for my wrath is not new or single,” wrote Lou LaBrant in 1931, targeting how too often the project method engaged students in activities other than literacy.

This sharp critique by LaBrant has always resonated with me because even though I am now a teacher educator and have been a teacher for well over thirty years, I have always balked at pedagogy, instructional practices of any kind but especially those driven by technocratic zeal.

As one example, literature circles as an instructional structure represents the essential problems confronted by LaBrant about 86 years ago: the instructional practice itself requires time to teach students how to do the practice properly, and thus, “doing literature circles” becomes a goal unto itself and as a consequence subsumes and/or replaces the authentic literacy goals it claims to seek.

Further, many instructional practices border on being gimmicky because they are constructed in such a way to facilitate that anyone (regardless of expertise and experience) can implement them in the role of “teacher.”

For a while now, I have been contemplating the tension within teaching writing (composition) between those who teach writing as teachers and those who teach writing as writers.

I certainly default to the latter, and am drawn often to John Warner‘s public examinations of his teaching of writing (see below) because he also teaches writing as a writer.

Warner’s pieces about grading contracts and de-grading his first-year writing course have come when I am beginning my English/ELA methods seminar and wading into how my candidate must navigate ways to seek authentic practices in the context of the real world of teaching that often models for her teaching writing as a teacher, as a technocrat.

Here, then, I want to pull together a few concepts that I think are at their core related to LaBrant’s “wrath” and my rejecting of technocratic instruction—writing workshop, cognitive overload, and creative writing.

Warner in blog posts and on Twitter questions his commitment to writing workshop, and offered that he has abandoned the term “workshop” for “laboratory.”

In one response, I mused that this all depends on what we mean by On Writing Workshop, Cognitive Overload, and Creative Writing | radical eyes for equity:

The Myth of “Failed” School Reform, (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

The Myth of “Failed” School Reform, (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

The Myth of “Failed” School Reform, (Part 1) 

Were the “Open Space” schools of the 1960s and 1970s a reform failure?.

Instead of self-contained, four-walled classrooms of about 900 square feet holding one teacher and 25 students that opened up into long hallways, school boards hired architects to design schools without walls with large open spaces—sometimes called pods– where teams of teachers would teach multi-age children, collaborate with one another nearby and come up with innovative lessons that would engage students and sustain academic achievement. The newly designed physical structure would alter traditional age-graded schools in organizing students (e.g., multi-age groups rather than separating children and youth by age) how teachers worked together (e.g., team teaching rather than teachers assigned to separate classrooms) and how they taught the required curriculum by tailoring instruction and learning to the differences among students in abilities and their needs (e.g., small groups, individual work, and crossing subject boundaries with thematic units rather than whole-group instruction, textbooks, homework, and tests). Student-centered teaching, not the familiar teacher-centered lesson–would become the norm, open space reformers assumed.[i]

Open space architecture and enthusiasm for innovative grouping of children, teaching, and learning customized to individual students spread rapidly across the U.S. In the Washington, D.C. area, for example,

The District of Columbia schools spent $163 million in the 1970s to build 17 open space schools. In the same decade, Arlington County (VA) spent $25 million to convert 13 traditional schools into open space facilities. Montgomery County The Myth of “Failed” School Reform, (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Following the Bouncing Money Ball at Seattle Schools

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Following the Bouncing Money Ball at Seattle Schools:

Following the Bouncing Money Ball at Seattle Schools

Most of my readers know by now that I am very interested in capital issues and funding.  I care for two reasons. 

One, every single student deserves a clean, well-maintained, safe building to call "my school."  It would be great if the technology is up-to-date and there is natural light and flow to the building to create an inviting atmosphere.

Two, the taxpayers of Seattle vote in ever-increasing huge sums of money for these buildings.  And, yet the district does not maintain the system properly.  As well, the district has a very convoluted idea that they can move money around from BEXs and BTAs and claim all the work promised will be done.  I have disputed that claim for a long time and I still believe it. 

There has never been a transparent accounting of all the dollars in the BEXs and BTAs and what work actually happened.  Never.

Yesterday, I received the notice of the upcoming BEX Oversight Committee meeting on Friday morning.  The notice included several documents including the minutes from the last meeting as well as a status report on BEX IV projects and other major projects.  I wrote to the Board this morning about them.  (I note that Directors Burke and Geary were at the December meeting.)

I can only say I'm appalled. I'm sure there are MANY reasons for what is Seattle Schools Community Forum: Following the Bouncing Money Ball at Seattle Schools:



 Seattle Schools Community Forum: Tuesday Open Thread - http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2017/01/tuesday-open-thread.html

Donald Trump Is "an Existential Threat to Public Schools" | Mother Jones

Donald Trump Is "an Existential Threat to Public Schools" | Mother Jones:

Donald Trump Is "an Existential Threat to Public Schools"
How teachers' unions are fighting his education secretary pick, Betsy DeVos.

On the day President-elect Donald Trump announced Michigan billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos as his pick for education secretary, the heads of the country's two largest teachers unions jumped to condemn the choice. American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten called DeVos "the most ideological, anti-public education nominee put forward since President Carter created a Cabinet-level Department of Education." National Education Association (NEA) president Lily Eskelsen García noted the administration's choice "demonstrated just how out of touch it is with what works best for students, parents, educators, and communities."

Educators have worried that DeVos, a prominent Republican fundraiser, and her support for "school choice" and the use of vouchers would endanger public education. With the billionaire's confirmation hearing slated for Wednesday, the nation's two biggest teachers' unions have gone on the offensive with grassroots campaigns to challenge DeVos' nomination. 

"We did everything in our power to get Hillary Clinton elected. We didn't have a plan B."

Neither group anticipated Donald Trump to win the election. "We did everything in our power to get Hillary Clinton elected. We didn't have a plan B," Weingarten says. "We always thought Donald Trump would be as dangerous as he's showing he is." But both unions say they were unsurprised by Trump's selection of DeVos, whose past work in Michigan align with the president-elect's proposals to direct federal dollars toward private and charter schools. "We have many, many years of experience with her and her undermining of the public education system in Michigan. We have frontline stories about what her agenda and the Trump agenda has meant to communities and to students," says Mary Kusler, senior director of the NEA Center for Advocacy. "She was not somebody who was plucked out of thin air for us."

Education historian Diane Ravitch, who founded the advocacy group Network for Public Education in 2013, described unions as "shocked and worried" by the DeVos selection in an email to Mother Jones. "The previous Republican administrations did not threaten the very existence of public education and teachers unions," she added. "This coming four years is an existential threat to a basic Democratic Donald Trump Is "an Existential Threat to Public Schools" | Mother Jones:

Schools Matter: Lamar Alexander Assures Diane Supporters about DeVos

Schools Matter: Lamar Alexander Assures Diane Supporters about DeVos:

Lamar Alexander Assures Diane Supporters about DeVos

When Diane Ravitch wanted her flock to be herded into supporting the federal charter school expansion legislation known as ESSA, she called upon Lamar Alexander's office to offer a nine-part spin session (see below) designed to mislead, obfuscate, and soothe any remaining skeptics. After all, Diane's support prior to ESSA passage was seminal in neutralizing early resistance to the new blueprint for Ed Reform 2.0.  The least that Alexander could do, as the Bill's co-sponsor, was to offer up his propaganda chief to help baffle any remaining ESSA doubters with tons of regulatory bullshit.

Though Diane's most recent ESSA campaign of political treachery essentially signaled the end of the Fall and Rise of the Reign of Ravitch, she continues to try to distinguish her own policy agenda from the neoliberal ed policies that her actions consistently support, even as she disavows them.  The most recent example can be found in her incessant lambasting of Billionaire Betsy as the educational anti-christ, when, in fact, Betsy DeVos serves as the perfect foil for Ravitch's long-time allowances for corporate welfare non-profit charter schools in her education ecosystem. 

The biggest differences between Betsy and Diane is that Betsy likes any kind of privatization and is proud of it, while Diane has a selective criteria for draining public education funds with segregated charters, and she doesn't like to talk it--at all.  Ravitch would rather pretend, in fact, that she is leading the opposition, even if it directly down the rabbit hole.

Maybe, just maybe, Alexander's office can put to rest any skepticism that remains about Billionaire Betsy.  The temporary delay Schools Matter: Lamar Alexander Assures Diane Supporters about DeVos:

Did Betsy DeVos 'BUY' Donald Trump | Washington Examiner

GOP megadonor wants Trump to start praising school choice | Washington Examiner:

GOP megadonor wants Trump to start praising school choice 

Republican megadonor Betsy DeVos seems to want Donald Trump to start talking about school choice before she'll support him. Trump has yet to mention school choice much on the campaign trail, although he has said education needs to be done at the state and local level. School choice hasn't come up much during the main convention speeches, but DeVos, chair of the pro-school choice group American Federation for Children, said the school choice discussion has exceeded her expectations.

"I've been happily surprised to hear it mentioned as many times as it has been, because it hasn't been part of the conversation nationally to date," DeVos said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. "It's pretty understandable because on the other side, Hillary is clearly in the camp of the status quo and the teachers' unions. But I'm very hopeful Mr. Trump will begin talking about this as part of his campaign rhetoric going into the fall. I think it's a really important issue that Republicans broadly can and should embrace because it represents hope and opportunity for a lot of people who don't have it today."

DeVos spoke positively of the speeches given by Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Jr. On Tuesday, Trump Jr. said the country needs more school choice. "You know why other countries do better in K through 12?" Trump Jr. said. "They let parents choose where to send their own children to school. That's called competition. It's called the free market."

If Trump makes a similar mention of school choice when he accepts the nomination Thursday night, it would probably go a long way in persuading DeVos to support him. "I'm continuing to watch and listen and observe," she said, not ruling out a later endorsement. But for that to come, DeVos wants to see "A greater focus on the issues that are of import to all of the American people. … I need to see more of a refinement on that. And to see a more presidential demeanor." She later added that Trump's rhetoric also needs refinement.

Despite Trump's lack of vision on education, DeVos ruled out any possibility of supporting Hillary Clinton, even if Clinton chooses a pro-school choice running mate like Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

DeVos also mentioned that Trump's campaign seems to be going fine without financial support from the GOP donor class. "Truth be told, Mr. Trump has been running a campaign that hasn't really required the resources of a lot of other people. And it's been working for him," DeVos said.

DeVos and her husband, Dick, are major players in Michigan Republican politics. The family has billions of dollars in Amway wealth and Betsy was the chair of the state GOP from 1996-2000 and again in 2004. Dick ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006.

"There's an opportunity" for Trump to win Michigan, she said, though he faces an uphill battle. A CBS Poll of Michigan conducted earlier this month found Clinton had a three-point lead over Trump. "Michigan clearly is kind of a schizophrenic state," DeVos said, pointing out Michigan's tendency to vote for Democrats in presidential elections but vote for Republicans for statewide offices.

DeVos and her husband endorsed Marco Rubio just before the Michigan primary in March, but she doesn't feel betrayed by Rubio's endorsement of Trump. She said Rubio's endorsement of Trump seemed to follow "a natural progression" and that both his and Gov. Scott Walker's comments at the convention in support of Trump were "important and appropriate."

In a March interview with the Examiner, DeVos said, "I don't think [Trump] represents the Republican Party. I think he is an interloper." Even at that stage, it was no sure bet that Trump was going to win the GOP nomination.

Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

GOP megadonor wants Trump to start praising school choice | Washington Examiner:

Big Education Ape: Donald Trump Dances to His Billionaire Backers’ Tune on School Choice - The Daily Beast - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/09/donald-trump-dances-to-his-billionaire.html

Schools Matter: Who is Cambridge Education?

Schools Matter: Who is Cambridge Education?:

Who is Cambridge Education?

On September 15, 2016, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission approved a $200,000 contract with Cambridge Education for investigation of the cash-strapped Philadelphia School District that stated:
  

RESOLVED, that the School Reform Commission authorizes the School District of Philadelphia, through its Superintendent or his designee, to execute, deliver and perform a contract with Cambridge Education, to develop, manage, and execute a comprehensive School Quality Review process, to gather data and develop qualitative reports on school quality and to engage the school community and gather community input, for an amount not to exceed $200,000, for the period commencing September 16, 2016 through June 30, 2017. 

The description the SRC provided of the Resolution said:

The information gathered during the School Quality  Review process will be used to inform recommendations on appropriate measures to be taken to promote sustained school improvement through the System of Great Schools process. The vendor's purpose in the School Quality Review Process will be to provide additional on-the ground data to inform decision-making. All final recommendations on the investments and interventions to be made in schools will be made by the District.

See SRC Resolution A-3 for the full description of this resolution.

Since the September 15^th, 2016 meeting, the SRC has held hearings at its eleven Priority Schools. They were Schools Matter: Who is Cambridge Education?:

Betsy DeVoucher - Living in Dialogue

Betsy DeVoucher - Living in Dialogue:

Betsy DeVoucher 

I found this great animation by Ryan Sluggett on the web. Hopefully, with Betsy DeVos’ confirmation hearing postponed a week, new disclosures will save us from this nightmare scenario. –Vincent

 Betsy DeVoucher - Living in Dialogue:

Positive School Cultures Thrive When Support Staff Included

Positive School Cultures Thrive When Support Staff Included:

Positive School Cultures Thrive When Support Staff Included

The whole village concept for improving schools stresses the importance of all school employees working together to help students succeed – everyone from principals, custodians and bus drivers to teachers, nurses, administrators, security and food service workers. The objective is to create a school culture that helps students reach their full potential academically, socially, and emotionally.

“Everything that goes on in a school is important,” says Dr. James Comer, a child psychiatrist with the Yale University Child Study Center and renowned child development author. “ESPs (education support professionals) are involved in ways that support everybody in the school and decrease behavioral problems.”

With almost 3 million school support staff working in our nation’s public schools, Comer says it’s imperative to the well-being of students that ESPs be included in school activities. During a webinar titled, The Village and the Whole Student, Comer says ESPs can help impact student learning and performance when they are respected and included as workplace partners.

“ESPs are often available in ways the classroom teacher is not,” Comer says. “You ask a child 20, 30 years later and they will tell you that what that person (an ESP) thought was very important.”

Partners in Education

Approximately 75 percent of ESPs live, vote, worship, and work in the same school district. They often live in the same neighborhoods and shop at the same stores as students and their families.Positive School Cultures Thrive When Support Staff Included:

Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Plays Hardball With Her Wealth - The New York Times

Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Plays Hardball With Her Wealth - The New York Times:

Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Plays Hardball With Her Wealth

After Tom Casperson, a Republican state senator from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, began running for Congress in 2016, he assumed the family of Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee to be education secretary, would not oppose him.

The DeVoses, a dominant force in Michigan politics for decades with a fortune in the billions, had contributed to one of Mr. Casperson’s earlier campaigns. But a week before his primary, family members sent $24,000 to one of his opponents, then poured $125,000 into a “super PAC,” Concerned Taxpayers of America, that ran ads attacking him.

The reason, an intermediary told Mr. Casperson: his support from organized labor.

“Deceitful, dishonest and cowardly,” was how Mr. Casperson’s campaign described the ads, complaining that the groups running them “won’t say who they are or where their money is coming from.” On Primary Day, Mr. Casperson went down to defeat.

In announcing his intention to nominate Ms. DeVos, Mr. Trump described her as “a brilliant and passionate education advocate.” Even critics characterized her as a dedicated, if misguided, activist for school reform. But that description understates both the breadth of Ms. DeVos’s political interests and the influence she wields as part of her powerful family. More than anyone else who has joined the incoming Trump administration, she represents the combination of wealth, free-market ideology and political hardball associated with a better-known family of billionaires: Charles and David Koch.

“They have this moralized sense of the free market that leads to this total program to turn back the ideas of the New Deal, the welfare state,” Kim Phillips-Fein, a historian who has written extensively about the conservative movement, said, describing the DeVoses.

Ms. DeVos declined to be interviewed for this article.

Like the Kochs, the DeVoses are generous supporters of think tanks that evangelize for unrestrained capitalism, like Michigan’s Acton Institute, and that rail against unions and back privatizing public services, like the Mackinac Center.

They have also funded national groups dedicated to cutting back the role of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Plays Hardball With Her Wealth - The New York Times:

Marie Corfield: The First Week of the 115th Congress

Marie Corfield: The First Week of the 115th Congress:

The First Week of the 115th Congress

NJ Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman posted this on Facebook yesterday (all emphasis mine):

The week in review:

1. Trump fires all Ambassadors and Special Envoys, ordering them out by inauguration day.
2. House brings back the Holman rule allowing them to reduce an individual civil service, SES position, or political appointee's salary to $1, effectively firing them by amendment to any piece of legislation. We now know why they wanted names and positions of people in [the departments of] Energy and State.
3. Senate schedules 6 simultaneous hearings on cabinet nominees and triple-books those hearings with Trump's first press conference in months and an ACA budget vote, effectively preventing any concentrated coverage or protest.
4. House GOP expressly forbids the Congressional Budget Office from reporting or tracking ANY costs related to the repeal of the ACA.
5. Trump continues to throw the intelligence community under the bus to protect Putin, despite the growing mountain of evidence that the Russians deliberately interfered in our election.
6. Trump breaks a central campaign promise to make Mexico pay for the wall by asking Congress (in other words, us, the taxpayers) to pay for it.
7. Trump threatens Toyota over a new plant that was never coming to the US nor will take jobs out of the US.
8. House passes the REINS act, giving them veto power over any rules enacted by any federal agency or department—for example, FDA or EPA bans a drug or pesticide, Congress can overrule based on lobbyists, not science. Don't like that endangered species designation? Congress kills it.

We - progressive, liberal, libertarian and conservative - need to all wake up to what is actually happening to our beloved country.
#UnitedWeStand

COPY AND PASTE this entire post into your own status update instead of sharing. More of your friends will see it.

****

Thank you Rep. Watson Coleman! You were a fighter when you were a New Jersey Assemblywoman and we are so glad you are fighting for us in Washington.

Folks, this is not America. This is not a democracy. My country is quickly devolving into an authoritarian regime, a puppet state with Putin pulling the strings. 

But as the saying goes, "What do we do when we're under attack? We stand up. We fight back!"

Get on the phones. Call your elected officials and demand an explanation. Then, get up, get out and fight like hell!

See you in DC on the 21st.

Marie Corfield: The First Week of the 115th Congress:

Sen. Patty Murray seeks update on ethics review for Trump’s education pick, Betsy DeVos - The Washington Post

Sen. Patty Murray seeks update on ethics review for Trump’s education pick, Betsy DeVos - The Washington Post:

Sen. Patty Murray seeks update on ethics review for Trump’s education pick, Betsy DeVos

 A key Democratic senator is seeking more information about the status of a required ethics review for Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary.

The Office of Government Ethics, which is responsible for examining nominees’ financial disclosures and resolving potential conflicts of interest, on Saturday sounded an alarm about the fact that Senate Republicans were planning confirmation hearings this week for Trump nominees whose ethics reviews remained unfinished.

Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the ranking Democrat of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has said that DeVos’s confirmation hearing — currently scheduled for Wednesday — should be postponed until the Office of Government Ethics has a chance to complete its vetting.

[Betsy DeVos and her family members are major donors to GOP senators who will vote on her confirmation]

In a letter Friday to the head of the ethics office, Walter M. Shaub Jr., Murray asked for details about whether DeVos — a Michigan billionaire with significant financial holdings and a long record of contributions to political candidates and conservative causes — has submitted required information and where her review stands.

“Given Ms. DeVos’ very significant financial resources and the high position of public trust to which she will be nominated, it is essential that our Committee fully understand in advance of the hearing what are the potential conflicts of interest and the steps she will take in order to comply with federal ethics laws and regulations,” Murray wrote.

Here are the six questions Murray asked Shaub to answer:

1. Have OGE and the Department of Education received all the necessary information from Ms. DeVos?

2. Has the report been filed with OGE?

3. Has an ethics agreement been completed?

4. Has OGE reviewed and certified both Ms. DeVos’ financial disclosure form (OGE-278) and ethics agreement?

5. Are there outstanding ethics issues that still need to be resolved?

6. Can you provide an estimate of how long it will take to reach and certify an agreement? Sen. Patty Murray seeks update on ethics review for Trump’s education pick, Betsy DeVos - The Washington Post:

NAACP | NAACP Task Force to Hold Memphis Hearing on Education Quality

NAACP | NAACP Task Force to Hold Memphis Hearing on Education Quality:

NAACP TASK FORCE TO HOLD MEMPHIS HEARING ON EDUCATION QUALITY

 Jan. 10 Discussion between Public and Charter Education Advocates will include Charter Impacts on Underfunded School Districts

MEMPHIS, TN – A new NAACP task force studying education quality will be taking input from advocates, teachers, parents, and policy experts next week.

The NAACP National Task Force for Quality Education, along with The Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, will host the second of several national public hearings concerning public education quality and the impact of charter schools on underfunded school districts.

“In our communities in Memphis and around the nation, public education has always been the fountain of opportunity and we’ve got to ensure that in our attempts to improve it, we don’t unintentionally let it run dry,” said NAACP CEO and President Cornell William Brooks. “Ensuring that underfunded districts are not disparately impacted by the growth of charters or privatization has always been a priority for the NAACP.”

This event is the second hearing organized by the Task Force for QualityEducation.

The task force was created in October after board members approved a moratorium on expanding public charter school fundinguntil safeguards are in place to provide better transparency regarding accountability, and to prevent cases of fraud and mismanagement.

The hearing is set for Tuesday, January 10 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Holiday Inn at 3700 Central Ave. in Memphis.

The first task force hearing was held in early December in New Haven, CT. Future hearings are planned in Detroit, MI; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY, New Orleans, LA and Orlando, FL.

Educators, administrators, parents, students, elected officials, and education policy experts from throughout Tennessee will participate in the hearing.

“This is the second of seven hearings to be held around the nation taking a deep look at the issues facing public schools as well as the pros and cons of charter schools,” said Gloria Sweet-Love, President, Tennessee State Conference, Member, NAACP National Board of Directors and Member, National Task Force on Quality Education.

Invited key participants will include:

• Dr. Carol Johnson, Former Director of Schools (Boston City, St. Paul, MN, and Memphis)
• Mr. David Pickler, Co-Founder, American Public Education
• Ms. Teresa Jones, Attorney, and Chair of the Shelby County School Board
• Dr. Earl Watkins, Chair of Mississippi State NAACP Education Committee
• Dr. Merwyn L. Scott, Director Minority Community Organizing & Partnership Dept., National Education Association (NEA)
• Ms. Malika Anderson, Superintendent of Achievement School District
• Ms. Maya Bugg, CEO of the Tennessee Charter Center
• Dr. Patrick Washington, Director Promise Academy
• Charter School Advocates

“By bringing people from our community together from both sides, we can better understand the impact of charters on school funding and gain more transparency concerning their impact on public schools,” said Alice Huffman, chairman of the task force and president of the California State Conference of the NAACP.

Visitors who wish to speak at the hearing are asked to pre-register one hour before the session begins. To accommodate the public, individual speakers may be asked to adhere to a time limit or to appoint a representative to speak on behalf of a group.

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Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas here.

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Mitt Romney Speaks Up for Governance by Plutocrats | janresseger

Mitt Romney Speaks Up for Governance by Plutocrats | janresseger:

Mitt Romney Speaks Up for Governance by Plutocrats

Mitt Romney had a preposterous op-ed in the Washington Post over the weekend.  He suggests that Betsy DeVos, a billionaire, is ideally qualified to be U.S. Secretary of Education because she is so rich she doesn’t stand to benefit from any kind of future employment in a public school.

Romney’s argument is that the One Percent ought to be in charge of making public education policy, because unlike the the rest of us, billionaires lack the bias that might be carried by somebody who needed work—as a schoolteacher, for example. While the rest of us might worry that Betsy DeVos lacks relevant experience as a public school student or public school parent or public school teacher, and lacks training in pedagogy or school administration, Romney believes her vast wealth is her best qualification for the job:  “Essentially, it’s a debate between those in the education establishment who support the status quo because they have a financial stake in the system and those who seek to challenge the status quo because it’s not serving kids well… First, it’s important to have someone who isn’t financially biased shaping education. As a highly successful businesswoman, DeVos doesn’t need the job now, nor will she be looking for an education job later.”

Profiling DeVos in the Washington Post, Emma Brown describes the political giving of the DeVos family. In contrast to Mitt Romney, Brown explains that Betsy DeVos is biased: DeVos has a financial stake in a clear political agenda that has for decades been represented by her and her husband’s political giving. Brown reports that DeVos told Roll Call in 1997: “that she had decided ‘to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect some things in return. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American values.”

Romney also claims there is substantial academic research proving that charter schools in Mitt Romney Speaks Up for Governance by Plutocrats | janresseger: