Protest the Confirmation of Billionaire Betsy DeVos - New U.S. Senate Education Committee Members | Truth in American Education

New U.S. Senate Education Committee Members | Truth in American Education:

New U.S. Senate Education Committee Members

Just an FYI, there have been some changes on the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee due to the election. These committee members will hold their hearing for Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos on January 11th. I’d encourage you to contact them with questions they can ask of the nominee. I have eleven questions of my own here if you need some ideas.

• U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) – Chair
• U.S. Senator Patty Murray (R-WA) – Ranking Member
• U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
• U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO)
• U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R-NC)
• U.S. Senator Bob Casey (D-PA)
• U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA)
• U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME)
• U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY)
• U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN)
• U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH)
• U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
• U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
• U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA)
• U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
• U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT)
• U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
• U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS)
• U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
• U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)
• U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
• U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
• U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-IN)

New U.S. Senate Education Committee Members | Truth in American Education:

 

Big Education Ape: The NPE Toolkit: Stop Betsy DeVos - Network For Public Education - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-npe-toolkit-stop-betsy-devos.html

Betsy Devos’s presumed agenda: Dismantle public education | Politics | Chicago Reader

Betsy Devos’s presumed agenda: Dismantle public education | Politics | Chicago Reader:

Betsy Devos’s presumed agenda: Dismantle public education 
Local experts warn that Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education will wage war on “government schools.”

Betsy DeVos, president-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of the Department of Education, might not be the worst of the megabucks donors and right-wing crusaders in Mr. Trump's prospective cabinet.

There's Scott Pruitt, the EPA head who's sued the EPA. Rick Perry, the energy secretary who wanted to dump the Department of Energy. Andrew Puzder, the labor secretary and fast-food mogul who opposed a $10 minimum wage. And Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state who heads the world's biggest oil company and is Russia's decorated BFF. That's just to mention a few.

But the DeVos appointment, like all the others, is causing alarm. Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis told me DeVos is "a nightmare." University of Illinois College of Education professor Pauline Lipman, in an interview last week, said she'll be "a really significant threat." And American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten issued a statement claiming that Trump has selected "the most ideological, anti-public education nominee" in the Department of Education's history.

"Betsy DeVos is everything Donald Trump said is wrong in America—an ultra-wealthy heiress who uses her money to game the system and push a special-interest agenda," Weingarten wrote. By nominating her, "Trump makes it clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding, and destroying public education in America."

DeVos, as you've no doubt gathered by now, is not a friend of teachers' unions. Nor of what she calls "government schools"—traditional public neighborhood schools—though she has no personal experience with them. She's never been a teacher or a school administrator, and she never attended public school herself. Neither did any of her four children. So what, besides millions of dollars in campaign contributions, is leading her to the federal government's top education job?

A native of Holland, Michigan, DeVos is industrial royalty—daughter of the founder of Prince Manufacturing, a maker of machines and parts for the auto industry. Descended from Dutch-German immigrants who came to America to escape government interference in the Dutch Reformed Church, Betsy was educated at private Christian schools and graduated Betsy Devos’s presumed agenda: Dismantle public education | Politics | Chicago Reader:

Embedded Assessments: An End Around Parental Opt-Outs | Truth in American Education

Embedded Assessments: An End Around Parental Opt-Outs | Truth in American Education:

Embedded Assessments: An End Around Parental Opt-Outs

Over the last several years, a major point of contention between parents and the education establishment (both federal and state) has been the issue of testing. Especially as states have responded to federal mandates by administering unvalidated assessments aligned to the Common Core national standards, parents across the country have begun, with varying degrees of success, to opt their children out of those assessments. The new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) perpetuates the federal testing mandates, so the opt-out movement will continue.

But the education establishment is now colluding with Big Data to obliterate opting out. How? By promoting “embedded assessment” within the digital-learning platforms that are gradually replacing teacher-led instruction. As students interact with these sophisticated platforms, the software collects millions of data points on each child and can assess exactly what “skills” he has mastered and where he needs further training. (Modern progressive education is about skills rather than knowledge, and training rather than education.) Embedded assessment means each student’s performance will be assessed every moment, in real time, through analysis of keystrokes and perhaps even physiological reactions. Because ultimately the periodic “summative assessment” – the end-of-course or end-of-year test — will disappear, so will parents’ ability to protect their children from the testing.

The concept of embedded assessment has a certain appeal. If students are being assessed Embedded Assessments: An End Around Parental Opt-Outs | Truth in American Education:

Public Education and the Spectre of Fascism | BustED Pencils

Public Education and the Spectre of Fascism | BustED Pencils:

The Spectre of Fascism

“Fascism is capitalism in decay”, said Lenin. We’ve seen this before. When the traditional capitalist system is failing, there are cracks within the ruling class, and its accompanying political structures are in turmoil, a section of that class backs a strongman for its own protection. These strongmen have a populist appeal, yet they are married to the interests of big business. They do not always come to power by coup d’etat or machine gun politics. The potential for fascism is built into the capitalist system itself. Adolf Hitler, fascism’s poster boy was elected as chancellor of Germany in 1933.

Today, we see all these pieces of fascism coming together with the election of Donald Trump. This does not necessarily mean that death camps and forced labor are next, but we should be prepared for what is to come. It is pretty clear that among other things, the traditional fascist xenophobia, expansion police power, dismantling of unions and accompanying corporatism will be accelerated based on his rhetoric and his cabinet full of corporate pirates and gangsters. How will this affect our jobs and our students?

Modern Day Fascists and Education

The popular depiction of public education from the right wing is as a cesspool of liberal, quasi radical, godless teachers indoctrinating children instead of educating them, promoting homosexuality and atheism. Public education, then is at the root of the decline of America. Part of the fascist narrative is that traditional values are under attack and need to be Public Education and the Spectre of Fascism | BustED Pencils:

The Rocks On Which We Can Build Better Schools (and a Better Democracy) | The Huffington Post

The Rocks On Which We Can Build Better Schools (and a Better Democracy) | The Huffington Post - Linkis.com:
The Rocks On Which We Can Build Better Schools (and a Better Democracy)

During my first semester teaching in the inner city, Davina (as I will call her) did not ask permission to interrupt when I was in the middle of a sentence; she just got up and walked across the room. I wondered what was in Davina’s mind as she went to the far back corner. She acted as if she owned the place, but then again, there are worse things than students taking over their own classroom. She took a seat next to the only white kid in the room, a new transfer. Davina put her hand on the girl’s hand and said, “Honey, you look scared. Don’t worry. You will be alright.”

So, as we enter the Trump presidency and anticipate its assault on public education, we should draw upon our students’ strengths when envisioning a new approach to school improvement. If America will listen to our kids, our democracy will be alright.

The corporate school reform edu-politics of destruction failed to improve our schools, as it divided progressives, pitting civil rights advocate against civil rights advocate. Before the election, a Trump victory seemed unlikely, so both sides often devoted much of the energy, which should have been used against the Trump threat, to our education civil war. While Democrats fought Democrats over Massachusetts charter expansion, an advocate for racism, sexism, and xenophobia was elected.

To improve schools, we need a politics of inclusion. After all, one of our fundamental purposes as educators is to prepare children for life in a democracy, and we teach every child who walks through the door, regardless of their political beliefs. We should borrow a phrase from Governor Al Smith, and produce happy political warriors. To educate children for life in the 21st century, we should build upon the best of American society.

These would be the rocks on which I would build the next era of school reform:

A Culture of Peer Review and Collaboration

The first rock which I would use to improve teacher quality would be peer review. Peer review represents the best way to get out of the most destructive battle in our The Rocks On Which We Can Build Better Schools (and a Better Democracy) | The Huffington Post - Linkis.com:

Republican legislator introduces bill to repeal Connecticut’s STUDENT DATA PRIVACY ACT. - Wait What?

Republican legislator introduces bill to repeal Connecticut’s STUDENT DATA PRIVACY ACT. - Wait What?:
Republican legislator introduces bill to repeal Connecticut’s STUDENT DATA PRIVACY ACT.

When it comes the Connecticut General Assembly and education policy, one of the most important developments was the passage, last year, of a new Connecticut Student Data Privacy Act that requires school districts to institute reasonable safeguards when selling, sharing or providing outside entities access to student information, student records, or student-generated content.

Without this law, many school districts had failed to adopted appropriate policies associated with contracts between school districts and corporations that are interested in collecting, buying, selling or using what should obviously be confidential student data.

Now, in an astonishing, baffling and extremely disturbing move, State Representative Stephen Harding (R-107th District) has introduced legislation (HB 5233) to repeal this important law (Public Act 16-189)

Representative Stephen Harding was elected to the Connecticut House of Republican legislator introduces bill to repeal Connecticut’s STUDENT DATA PRIVACY ACT. - Wait What?:

Facebook Hires Campbell Brown to Help Smooth Relations with Mainstream Media | Diane Ravitch's blog

Facebook Hires Campbell Brown to Help Smooth Relations with Mainstream Media | Diane Ravitch's blog:
Facebook Hires Campbell Brown to Help Smooth Relations with Mainstream Media

This is a stunner. Facebook has hired Campbell Brown to smooth over bad feelings with the mainstream media.

To friends of public education, Brown is known as a propagandist for privatization.

Will she give up her billionaire-funded role at The 74?

In recent years, Ms. Brown has emerged as a major player in the pitched political battles over charter schools, prominently clashing with teachers unions while advocating against teachers tenure. She is married to Dan Senor, a Republican foreign policy adviser and former White House adviser, who is making his own media foray with a bid to buy the Israeli financial newspaper Globes. And, during the campaign Ms. Brown was critical of Donald J. Trump.

But Facebook executives said they were hiring Ms. Brown for her understanding of the news industry as a one-time White House correspondent, co-anchor of “Weekend Today” and primary substitute anchor of “Nightly News” at NBC News, and prime-time anchor on CNN, which she left in 2010.

She served on Betsy DeVos’ board at the American Federation for Children (a pro-voucher organization of right-wingers) and DeVos held to fund Brown’s anti-union activities.Facebook Hires Campbell Brown to Help Smooth Relations with Mainstream Media | Diane Ravitch's blog:

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: The Property Tax Problem

CURMUDGUCATION: PA: The Property Tax Problem:

PA: The Property Tax Problem

AP's Marc Levy reports this week that Pennsylvania's legislature (one of the largest and most expensive ones in the country) is expected this year to once again tackle one of the great third rails of Pennsylvania politics-- property taxes.

This system is part of the mechanism that gives Pennsylvania one of the country's largest funding gaps between rich and poor districts. The state provides around 36.1% of public school funding, putting it around 45th in the nation. That means that local districts depend heavily upon local funding, and that's where the huge inequality slinks in. On the bottom end of the scale we find districts collecting $3,100 in local property tax dollars per student, while on the top end, the figure is around $13,000. Attempts were made in 2016 to fix things, a bit, but Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and the hugely GOP legislature have, well, some issues to sort out.

Levy writes that sponsors are expected to once again introduce House and Senate Bills 76, a bill that died a narrow death in the State Senate back in 2015 (a not-along-party-lines tie was broken by Democratic Lt. Governor Mike Stack), but the GOP thinks the math has changed and this year will be different (that's just the Senate, though-- this could all still tank in the House).

The goal, as usual, is to get rid of property taxes entirely. In this case, the plan is to replace them with increased sales tax and income tax revenue. Income tax would climb from 3.07% up to 4.95 %, while sales tax would jump from the already-hefty 6% to 7%-- and extended to more types of items and services that are not currently taxed at all.

The Property Tax Independence Act has plenty of fans and detractors, because it creates a whole CURMUDGUCATION: PA: The Property Tax Problem:

Third Wave Of Washington Charter Schools Eyed - Lens

Third Wave Of Washington Charter Schools Eyed - Lens:

Third Wave Of Washington Charter Schools Eyed

Opening and running a charter school isn’t for the faint of heart, but in Washington their ranks will grow this year with three more starting up in the fall. Eight are already running – six under state supervision in King and Pierce counties, and two under the Spokane School District’s purview. The kicker? More operator applicants may enter the pipeline, even as a second legal challenge to Washington charters unfolds in the courts.

March 31 Deadline

This week and next in Seattle and Vancouver, Washington, potential new applicants to run state-authorized charter schools are meeting with officials to boost their odds for success. Under the state’s timeline, notices of intent to file a 2017 application are due February 17. The applications are required by March 31. The State Charter School Commission, which reports to Governor Jay Inslee, will decide at a June 29 meeting which applications to accept.

The Spokane District does not expect new applicants this year due to a pending lawsuit against charters statewide, said board president Deanna Brower.

State law authorizes 40 charter schools. The first eight came from a pool that included 26 applicants to the state between 2013 and 2015, and an additional three to Spokane.

One possible application this year stems from Cascade Micro Schools, a Sammamish-based non-profit led by Christine Wright, a former teacher in Issaquah, Seattle and The Bronx. She also served as a founding lead teacher for the charter school organization KIPP, in New Jersey, and as a Teach For America corps member. Cascade’s niche is small K-5 schools that prepare students for demanding middle school and high school courses, and then competitive colleges and rewarding careers.

Cascade is merging into a new non-profit, Impact Public Schools. It includes in its Third Wave Of Washington Charter Schools Eyed - Lens:

Coleman: Trump’s schools pick is scary

Coleman: Trump’s schools pick is scary:

Coleman: Trump’s schools pick is scary

Few of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks frighten me more than Betsy DeVos as education secretary.

Sure, his foreign policy team is suspect and potentially dangerous. His nominee for attorney general, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, is a throwback to pre-Civil Rights era Jim Crow days. But DeVos, a former Michigan Republican Party chair, is scary on steroids.

Let’s review:

■In 1993, she worked to pass Michigan’s first charter-school bill. It opened the door for public money to be shifted to quasi-independent educational institutions.

■In 2001 she reportedly singled out education reform as a way to “advance God’s kingdom.”

■In 2003, as a board member of Children First America and the American Education Reform Council, and later as the chair of the American Federation for Children, she lobbied for school-choice voucher programs and tax-credit initiatives.

A growing number of people, this writer included, believe that Trump through DeVos intends to move forward on a voucher plan for America’s public schools and turn a blind eye to regulatory oversight. And that’s dangerous — especially for urban public school districts.

In response to Trump’s nomination of DeVos to lead the Department of Education, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten declared:

“Betsy DeVos is everything Donald Trump said is wrong in America — an ultra-wealthy heiress who uses her money to game the system and push a special-interest agenda that is opposed by the majority of voters. Installing her in the Department of Education is the opposite of Trump’s promise to drain the swamp.”

How does DeVos feel about the nomination?

“I am honored to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again,” DeVos tweeted last month.

When was education great?

■Was that before 1869 when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the Detroit Public Schools couldn’t lawfully operate separate systems for black students and white students — and that black kids would go to school with white kids?

■Was that before the seminal U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down separate but equal in the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision?

■Was that before black parents, the NAACP and others joined a class action lawsuit against the state of Michigan arguing that African-American children were the victims of systemic racial discrimination in the 1971 Bradley v. Milliken case?

■Was that before the 1997 Durant v. State Board of Education case where the State Supreme Court mandated that Michigan school districts provide appropriate funding for special education programs and students?

Here’s what we know: .Coleman: Trump’s schools pick is scary:

Trump’s education nominee and her family members are major donors to the senators who will vote on her confirmation - The Washington Post

Trump’s education nominee and her family members are major donors to the senators who will vote on her confirmation - The Washington Post:

Trump’s education nominee and her family members are major donors to the senators who will vote on her confirmation

Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, is not just a prospective Cabinet member seeking confirmation from the U.S. Senate.

She is also a billionaire Republican donor whose family’s donations have funded the campaigns of many of the senators now tasked with voting on her nomination, including members of the committee overseeing her confirmation hearing next week.

During the 2014 and 2016 election cycles, DeVos and her relatives gave at least $818,000 to 20 current Republican senators, including more than $250,000 to five members of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission records.

DeVos personally made a relatively small percentage of those donations: at least $31,400 to committee members and $96,000 to all senators. But her giving appears to have been coordinated with her family: In most cases, senators received donations from more than a half-dozen DeVos family members, including her husband, his parents and his siblings, on the same day.

To money-in-politics watchdogs, the DeVos family’s contributions create a conflict of interest for senators now charged with judging Betsy DeVos’s fitness to helm the federal education department.

“She’s acknowledged that her family gives, and gives a lot, because it’s aiming to buy influence,” said Robert Weissman of Public Citizen, who said the scale of the DeVos family’s political Trump’s education nominee and her family members are major donors to the senators who will vote on her confirmation - The Washington Post:

Schools Matter: Ed Deform 2.0 in Less than Five Minutes

Schools Matter: Ed Deform 2.0 in Less than Five Minutes:

Ed Deform 2.0 in Less than Five Minutes

Published on Jan 5, 2017.  This is a summary for the one-hour talk "Ed Reform 2.0-Personalized Learning in Orwellian Times" available for viewing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0quQS.... For additional information visit Wrench in the Gears at https://wordpress.com/stats/day/wrenc....

Schools Matter: Ed Deform 2.0 in Less than Five Minutes:

How testing practices have to change in U.S. public schools - The Washington Post

How testing practices have to change in U.S. public schools - The Washington Post:

How testing practices have to change in U.S. public schools

Florida teachers protest in Tallahassee against state’s education policies. (Photo by Mike Archer, Used with permission)

There has been some testing reform progress made in the last year or so as state and federal officials finally began to acknowledge a grassroots movement by parents, educators, students and activists, who have protested the excessive and harmful use of high-stakes standardized tests. As part of that movement, hundreds of thousands of students “opted out” of mandated high-stakes standardized tests, with more than 20 percent of students in New York State doing so in each of the last two years.

“Accountability” systems used to evaluate students, teachers and even schools have been based on student standardized test scores, which were wrongly seen as the most important measure of how much a student learned, how well a teacher taught, and how effective schools were in closing the achievement gap.

Now it’s a new year and a new opportunity for states to construct new assessment policies and tests that are fair and effective. How to do it? This post offers one path, by Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, known as FairTest, a non-profit dedicated to ending the abuse and misuse of standardized tests.

By Monty Neill

Last year was a good one for testing reformers. More states dropped graduation exams. Many districts cut back testing time. The grassroots assessment reform movement grew stronger and more diverse. This new year can be even better if assessment reformers take advantage of opportunities under the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

ESSA ends most punitive federal accountability mandates. Of course, we cannot predict what President-elect Donald Trump and his education secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos, will try to do on testing and accountability. We do know that it will take concerted grassroots organizing to halt harmful state and local policies, creating space to improve education and implement new assessment systems.

The key testing reform demands remain:

• End high-stakes test uses for students, teachers, and schools;
• Reduce testing to the federally mandated minimum; and
• Implement educator-controlled, local performance assessments.

In this blog, FairTest shares our recommendations on testing practicesHow testing practices have to change in U.S. public schools - The Washington Post:

Ed Notes Online: Aim Of School Choice Is To Limit Choice - Norm in The WAVE

Ed Notes Online: Aim Of School Choice Is To Limit Choice - Norm in The WAVE:

Aim Of School Choice Is To Limit Choice - Norm in The WAVE

http://www.rockawave.com/news/2017-01-06/School_News/Aim_Of_School_Choice_Is_To_Limit_Choice.html

AIM OF SCHOOL CHOICE IS TO LIMIT CHOICE

School Scope

By Norm Scott

I’m continuing my series of columns on the voucher/school choice issue which will come to the fore under the Trumpadministration especially with his educational secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos, a fierce opponent of public schools. The very concept of a public school system is under attack which connects to the general anti-government movement. Over this series I am attempting to point out the fallacies.

One of the major talking points we hear from “choicers” is that the public schools are a government monopoly. David S. D'amato, policy advisor at the libertarian Heartland Institute, wrote Americans have forgotten the destructive philosophy upon which the government education apparatus was built. The centerpiece of that philosophy is the fallacy that centralization and monopolization equate to quality and results.

Centralized? We have one of the most decentralized school systems in the world with each city, town or county in theoretical control of their own schools and budgets – not always a good thing in some places – but stay with me. Here in NYC the system is so big it could use some decentralization down to neighborhoods, but not the total balkanization where each school is an island and competes with the other nearby schools for the best performing students and the same funding. Ironically, it has been state and federal governments that have tried to use the choice movement to override local controls by force feeding charter schools and common core into communities. Thus we saw as a counter reaction, the growth of the optout movement that led to 20 percent - 225,000 students – whose parents refused to let their kids take the state tests last year.

Let’s talk about the “monopoly” charge that we often heard from the very people who ran the NYC schools for 12 years under Bloomberg – Joel Klein and Dennis Walcott, both of whom lined up a 100 percent with the choicers. There is much irony in Ed Notes Online: Aim Of School Choice Is To Limit Choice - Norm in The WAVE:

DeVos would set precedent as secretary of education without strong commitment to public schools | EdSource

DeVos would set precedent as secretary of education without strong commitment to public schools | EdSource:

DeVos would set precedent as secretary of education without strong commitment to public schools

Betsy DeVos may well be the first U.S. secretary of education to come to office without expressing a strong belief in the importance of traditional public schools as a core democratic institution, and without any detailed ideas on the record for improving them other than prodding them to compete with charter schools and private schools.

If approved by the U.S. Senate after hearings scheduled for next week, the multibillionaire DeVos would be the 11th secretary of education. Her single-minded focus on finding alternatives to public education – largely in the form of taxpayer-supported vouchers and other ways to underwrite tuition for private schools – is unmatched by any other previous occupant of the post.

A review of DeVos’ public statements has not surfaced one where she indicates that public schools can be reformed to better serve children, or any set of strategies covering central challenges such as classroom instruction, teaching methods, or testing and accountability to accomplish that. Most of her statements are about “failing schools” and giving children a way to escape them.

The one statement she has made recently regarding classroom instruction was to post on her website within hours of being selected by President-elect Donald Trump to be his secretary of education that she was opposed to the Common Core state standards — which she described as a “federalized boondoggle.”

DeVos did not attend public schools. Nor did her children. She founded the American Federation for Children, whose board she chaired until a month ago. The organization’s main goal is to promote greater “school choice,” especially for DeVos would set precedent as secretary of education without strong commitment to public schools | EdSource:

Stabenow Opposes Betsy DeVos For Education Department Secretary | News/Talk 94.9 WSJM

Stabenow Opposes Betsy DeVos For Education Department Secretary | News/Talk 94.9 WSJM:

Stabenow Opposes Betsy DeVos For Education Department Secretary

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D), Mich.

U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow says she will vote against Betsy DeVos as the next head of the U.S. Education Department. The Michigan Democrat says she talked to DeVos. Stabenow says DeVos’ support for charter schools has “seriously undermined public education” in the state. DeVos, the former head of the Michigan Republican Party, is in favor of giving parents more education options. Her husband, Dick DeVos, started a charter high school in the Grand Rapids area that focuses on aviation and engineering. He also ran unsuccessfully for governor of Michigan against Jennifer Granholm in 2006.

The U.S. Senate will hold a confirmation hearing for DeVos on Wednesday. Ed Patru, a spokesman for a group called Friends of Betsy DeVos, tells the Detroit Free Press that Stabenow and DeVos still can find “common ground” on education issues.

- See more at: http://www.wsjm.com/2017/01/06/stabenow-opposes-betsy-devos-for-education-department-secretary/#sthash.r4aEUcXc.dpuf

How 2012 Chicago Teachers Strike Changed Fight Over Public Education | Chicago Tonight | WTTW

How 2012 Chicago Teachers Strike Changed Fight Over Public Education | Chicago Tonight | WTTW:

How 2012 Chicago Teachers Strike Changed Fight Over Public Education

The Chicago teachers strike of 2012 made international headlines and marked a major shift in the fight over public education reform.

After seven days on the picket lines, 26,000 teachers went back to the classroom with a new contract, but also with new direction.

That’s the case made in the new book “A Fight for the Soul of Public Education: The Story of the Chicago Teachers Strike,” by University of Illinois labor education professors Bob Bruno and Steven Ashby.

Bruno joins us to take a look back at what that strike – the first Chicago saw in 25 years – meant for public education and the labor movement.

Below, an excerpt from “A Fight for the Soul of Public Education.”

Introduction

For seven school days in September 2012, approximately twenty-six thousand members of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) walked picket lines in front of 580 schools. The Chicago school strike was the first the city had seen in a quarter century.

This book offers an analysis of what happened during the strike and why it is important for public education and the common good. We aim to tell two interwoven stories.

First, we provide a rare look deep inside the contract bargaining process, based on extensive interviews with both management and union bargainers. For roughly ten months leading up to the strike, union and management teams enveloped themselves in the minutiae of more than one thousand contract proposals. A labyrinth of procedures governed the bargaining activity, and two major state education laws needed to be incorporated into the contract. Bargaining continued throughout the strike, and the parties eventually produced a labor agreement whose proteacher substance few had predicted possible.

Second, we seek to tell, through the teachers’ and staff’s voices, the story of how the CTU was transformed from a top-down, bureaucratic organization into one of the most member-driven unions in the United States. In this process, a labor conflict focused solely on compensation at the start developed into a challenge to a national education reform movement that, teachers charged, was systematically destroying public education and using Chicago as its test case. Unlike in past strikes, tens of thousands of teachers, clinicians, and paraprofessionals marched repeatedly in Chicago’s neighborhoods and downtown. Thousands of community members and parents joined the demonstrations. Crowds swelled, shutting down streets in the city’s Loop district. Instead of accepting the loss of classroom control and corporate style-management of schools, which teachers had been told for decades was “inevitable,” the CTU reinvigorated a national teachers movement by fighting back. The ripple effects of the 2012 strike are being felt in school districts and union halls across the country.

The strike occurred in the context of a decades-long political and economic struggle where probusiness forces maneuvered against teachers unions, often with bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans, for control of the country’s public education system. Public schools have always been the subject of intense scrutiny, but, beginning in the 1980s, they became the institutions over which the How 2012 Chicago Teachers Strike Changed Fight Over Public Education | Chicago Tonight | WTTW:

The American Teacher vs. Betsy DeVos

The American Teacher vs. Betsy DeVos:

The American Teacher vs. Betsy DeVos

They are asking me the question, ‘Is the American Dream dead?’ And the American Dream is in trouble. But we’re going to get it back and do some real jobs.

–Donald Trump, Rochester, NH Town Hall, September 17, 2015

The appointment of Betsy DeVos as education secretary will offend every teacher in this country who has studied and committed their professional careers and lives to children. It will not be a “real job” because she is not qualified.

The American dream for teachers has been to serve. Becoming a teacher takes time and effort. And no matter what any outsiders say about public schools and learning, it is the teacher within the classroom who does the job.

Most teachers attend undergraduate school for four years. They study child development, psychology,  how to teach reading, math, science, social studies, art, music and other subjects.

Many go on for two more years of graduate school specializing and earning master’s degrees to prepare themselves to be even better at what they do.

Teachers are responsible for continuously learning so they can keep well-informed of the latest ideas for their students.

They also spend countless hours student teaching under the watchful eye of a supervising teacher.

Many teachers go on to earn doctorate degrees where they must do serious research and complete dissertations. This takes years!

Teachers choose their career not based on getting rich—please look at their salaries. They choose teaching because they like kids and their subject/s.

Some teachers come to the field through an alternative path. If they are to become real The American Teacher vs. Betsy DeVos: