With DeVos out, Biden plans reversals on education - The Washington Post

With DeVos out, Biden plans reversals on education - The Washington Post

With DeVos out, Biden plans series of reversals on education

 

President Trump tried to bully schools into opening their buildings, a hard-edge pandemic tactic that succeeded in places and backfired elsewhere. President-elect Joe Biden is hoping to pry them open with money for increased coronavirus expenses and clear guidance on how in-person schooling can resume safely, a shift that signals a new era for education policy in the United States.

Follow the latest on Election 2020

Under Trump, the Education Department has been led by Secretary Betsy DeVos, who alienated many by casting public schools as failures and promoting alternatives to them. Through executive action and negotiations with Congress, Biden wants to bolster public schools.

He has promised hundreds of billions of dollars in new education spending, for preschool through college. He has proposed college debt forgiveness. And he wants to overturn a controversial regulation on sexual harassment and assault that universities and others strongly opposed.

He has also promised to appoint an educator as education secretary and likes to tell people that a teacher will join him in the White House. Jill Biden, an English professor at a community college in Northern Virginia, has said she plans to continue teaching as first lady.

“Teaching isn’t just what she does — it’s who she is,” Joe Biden said Saturday in a victory speech after being declared the winner of the presidential race. “For America’s educators, this is a great day: You’re going to have one of your own in the White House.”

‘Jill is always grading papers,’ Michelle Obama told People magazine

With the election results clear, transition teams for every federal agency are beginning the work of assessing the state of each department, cataloguing Biden’s promises, determining what can be done by executive action and what needs congressional action, and setting priorities.

Next secretary

For the Education Department, the transition committee is being led by Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the California State Board of Education, several people said. Darling-Hammond, who was considered for education secretary by President Barack Obama in 2008, is under consideration again, people familiar with the process said. Also under consideration are two teachers-union leaders: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lily Eskelsen García, former president of the National Education Association CONTINUE READING: With DeVos out, Biden plans reversals on education - The Washington Post

CURMUDGUCATION: US Education versus Confucius

CURMUDGUCATION: US Education versus Confucius

US Education versus Confucius

Last Wednesday, the Education and State departments in DC announced that it was time to clamp down on Chinese influence in US classrooms.

The letter, which appears over the signatures of Betsy DeVos and Mike Pompeo, addresses the issue of the Confucius Classroom program. The program is a cultural outreach of the Chinese government; it has been around for a while and has always been viewed with suspicion in many quarters. From Associated Press coverage:

DeVos and Pompeo echoed longstanding complaints from academic groups that say schools give China too much control over what’s taught in Confucius Institute classes. Teachers who are vetted and paid by the Chinese government “can be expected to avoid discussing China’s treatment of dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities,” the officials wrote.

Conservatives have ben particularly critical. Here's Ethan Epstein, an associate editor of the Weekly Standard, digging up some quote ammunition for Politico in 2018:

 

A 2011 speech by a standing member of the Politburo in Beijing laid out the case: “The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad,” Li Changchun said. “It has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power. The ‘Confucius’ brand has a natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of teaching Chinese language, everything looks reasonable and logical.”

But concern extends outside the rightwing sphere. And internationally, Australia and Canada have CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: US Education versus Confucius