Betsy DeVos Is Coming For Your Children

Betsy DeVos Is Coming For Your Children:

Betsy DeVos Is Coming For Your Children

Even among all the billionaires, ideologues, and straight-up racist goons Donald Trump has nominated for his cabinet, Betsy DeVos, who was confirmed earlier this week as the Secretary of Education, stands out for how seemingly unqualified she is. As the doomed critics of her nomination were quick to say, she has never taught in a public school, attended a public school, or sent her children to a public school.

Focusing on this, though, misses the point of what DeVos brings to her post. Unlike, say, Ben Carson and Rick Perry, who are totally ignorant of housing and energy policy and have no relevant experience in their new fields, DeVos is highly qualified to implement her vision—children using vouchers to attend Kiddie Cato Institutes in the back of churches, more or less—for America. After all, she’s done it before.

A religious wingnut of the highest order, the West Michigan native married into Amway money (her husband Dick is part owner of the Orlando Magic and the entire DeVos clan is worth over $5 billion, according to Forbes) and has made it her life’s work to wage war on public schools in her home state, with a special and successful focus on Detroit’s public-education system. Your average market-humping moron, when they talk about school choice, simply means that they want to encourage the use of public schools as profit center. DeVos, a visionary in her way, is for abolishing them entirely.

“We need to retire DPS [Detroit Public Schools] and provide new and better education options that focus on Detroit schoolchildren,” she wrote in a Detroit News op-ed last year.

The frightening thing about DeVos, though, is less how dystopian her ideas are than how successful she’s been at imposing them. She’s had her way with Detroit; now she’s coming for the rest of the country.

“I’m terrified”

Hilary Young, a community activist and mother of three in southwest Detroit whose children have attended both public schools and charters, Betsy DeVos Is Coming For Your Children:

You said no to DeVos, this is how you can say yes to students

You said no to DeVos, this is how you can say yes to students:

You said no to DeVos, this is how you can say yes to students

Things you can do to support public education

You called, emailed, marched and told everyone on Facebook how much you care about public education. Now it's time to take that energy/frustration/inspiration and stand up for your local public school. And since we are educators, we came up with some homework for everybody and anybody who supports public schools, including ourselves. :)

 Find out who represents you and put them on your contact list

You probably already know who your senator is (because you shut down the Senate switchboard!), but do you know your school board members? Your state delegate? Find out who they are and put them on your contact list.

Attend your next school board meeting

Now that you have your school board members on speed dial, find out when they are meeting and what issues they are discussing. Invite a friend/colleague to go with you. (These can be long, so if you like to knit...)

The next step? Run for school board! Here's more state by state information.

Become an education activist

Join education activists from across the nation to stay informed and take action on the issues you care about. Sign up here.

Call a local school and offer to pay students’ overdue school lunch accounts

The reality: 73% of educators report having students who regularly come to school hungry. You can make a difference. (You can also act on a national level by clicking here)



CONTINUE READING HERE: You said no to DeVos, this is how you can say yes to students:

Charter Schools Blur Line Between Religious, Public Education - The Atlantic

Charter Schools Blur Line Between Religious, Public Education - The Atlantic:

Does Religion Have a Place in Public Schools?

“The question of what to do with religion in school-choice programs is how, or whether, to keep the baby while ditching the bathwater.”

 From the standpoint of democratic theory, the basic problem with school choice is this: Religious belief and affiliation can be vital sites of civic learning for many Americans. In their temples, mosques, and megachurches, Americans learn to cooperate, organize, identify, and engage with social problems. These skills help them develop the kind of bonding capital that forms the basis of a democracy; from that platform, citizens can develop the bridging capital that allows them to identify with and engage civil society as a whole.

On the other hand, some religious groups preach beliefs and false information that are hostile to fellow citizens and dangerous to civil society. Any old bonding capital is not good enough. As John Dewey once observed, belonging to a gang may provide a member with opportunities for connection and growth, but toward the pursuit of destructive ends. The question of what to do with religion in school-choice programs is how, or whether, to keep the baby while ditching the bathwater.

In some ways, deregulating public education and transcending the geographic limitations of 19th-century districting laws can enhance democratic education. Giving families a stronger sense of control and making schools more culturally relevant can help make public schooling more legitimate, bringing groups of outsiders into the public fold. Stephen Macedo, a politics professor at Princeton University, has argued that such strings can even encourage religious groups to modify their beliefs and practices. Large, public school districts can be highly impersonal and bureaucratic—indeed, a popular reform in the early 21st century was to create smaller schools, including schools within schools. High-quality regulations and curriculum standards, robust oversight and accountability, and careful attention to school climate can potentially make charter schools excellent places to learn and can make them attractive alternatives to traditional public schools where such things are insufficient.

Likewise, as Kathleen Knight Abowitz, an education professor at Miami University, has argued, themed charter schools have the potential to create “counterpublics” for members of oppressed groups where they can enjoy safety and build solidarity in cases when pluralistic public schools cannot offer them adequate protections.

Unfortunately the reverse can also be true—individuals and groups can use school choice to promote their private interests in ways that undermine the common good. Rather than changing the views of antidemocratic groups, choice programs can provide them with publicly funded platforms for spreading their ideology, while strings are either loosened, twisted, or dropped by the secular authorities who have no interest in holding them. Private religious schools can convert to public ones with little substantive change in whom they teach and to what ends. School leaders can wink at state and federal regulations, sneak religion into the curriculum, and in the most egregious (but predictable) exampleCharter Schools Blur Line Between Religious, Public Education - The Atlantic:

Ready, Set, Go! | commoncorediva

Ready, Set, Go! | commoncorediva:

Ready, Set, Go!

February 8, 2017Breaking News!"Warriors Against the CCSS Machine",#KeepYourPromise, #RepealESSA, #stopcommoncore, Betsy DeVos, control, educrats, Facebook, federal funding, federal funds, federal legislation, parents, PJNET #PJNET, Power, President Trump, quality education, Rally, respect, Secretary of Education, Twitter, War vs. Core, warriors, Warriors Against Fed Ed, We the People

YOU’RE INVITED:

Who: All anti CCSS/Fed Ed Warriors
When: Monday, February 13th, 2017, from 9 pm to 11 pm (EST)
Where: Twitter
Hosts: ‘Twitter Rally for Education’ (made up of grass roots folks like us) and PJNET

Details: 

1) This is a hash tag rally NOT a handle rally. What does that mean? It is a Rally to raise awareness NOT to attack or target individuals. Our goal is simple: hold our President accountable for his campaign promise to end CCSS, as well as to hold the new Secretary of Education accountable for working with We the People.

2) We need messages/memes (graphics, screen shots, etc.) as soon as possible. (*Note: We are not trying to get out complicated information. JUST LOTS of TWEETS to express public DEMAND that they Stop Common Core. Please KEEP IT SIMPLE!)
For the Rally to work WELL, our goal is 100 messages/memes. Send them via Twitter, to #KeepYourPromise and #PJNET BEFORE 2/11/17.

3) To find out more information about the “Twitter Rally for Education”:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/211416412659573/?multi_permalinks=212389645895583%2C212039872597227%2C212037525930795&notif_t=group_activity&notif_id=1486493523896801
4) Check back over the weekend for updated information about the Rally. An ‘Action Page’ link will be shared with instructions.
5) If the above link does not work, type in “Twitter Rally for Education” in the Facebook search bar. (*Be sure to check back over the weekend for the latest updates!)

6) Other hash tags we’ll be using are, #StopCommonCore; #RepealESSA

DeVos Is In, So What’s The Point?

This is not a ‘revenge’ Rally!

Since we must work with Mrs. DeVos, let’s remind her We the People desparately want our students (of all ages) out of CCSS aligned education!

The education reform road has a long and conflicted path. It won’t get fixed overnight. It will not be easy. But, We the Parents CANNOT give up!

Regardless of your like/dislike for Mrs. DeVos, we have to move forward in our War vs the Core. We do not have time to complain.

We must purpose to hold the Adminstration 100% accountable where education is concerned. If they are unwilling to keep their promises, we MUST call them out. We begin, Monday, Feb. 13th in a respectful manner.

Below are some examples:

A sample message for the above picture: “#KeepYourPromise #StopCommonCore #PJNET #Repeal ESSA: Parents know that aligned edu didn’t work/won’t work w/ ESSA.”

Read More @ Ready, Set, Go! | commoncorediva:

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Staying The Course

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Staying The Course:
DeVos Staying The Course

Betsy DeVos granted her first interview as Secretary of Education, or even Secretary-nominee, to Ingrid Jacques at the Detroit News.

Jacques could be counted on to treat DeVos with warm, soft, friendly gloves. The deputy editorial page editor has previously told readers that DeVos is all about children, that the EAA is working, and that DeVos showed grit at her hearing. Jacques was a fine choice for a friendly interview.

The confirmation process, led Jacques, was "grueling" with DeVos facing "ferocious and largely personal attacks on her character" as well as attacks about her support of school choice. But in keeping with the sorry-not-sorry tone of the piece, Jacques suggests that it was mean to hammer DeVos for her comments about choice, but not that any of the hammering was unfair, inaccurate or anything other than a response to what DeVos actually believes and says. And while I actually agree that some attacks were not useful (piling on over "historical" and bears seems pointless, criticizing DeVos based on her experience in education was difficult because she has none, just as she has no experience working at a job, for a boss. Or starting out with little and working hard to get ahead. Or, despite the honorary "businesswoman" label that CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos Staying The Course:

Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) meeting agenda.February 22-23, 2017 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education)

ACSE Agenda February 22-23, 2017 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education):

ACSE Agenda February 22-23, 2017

Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) meeting agenda.

ACSE Agenda February 22-23, 2017 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education):

ACSE Agenda February 22-23, 2017 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education):

Advisory Commission on Special Education Members

• Gina Plate, Chair
• Barbara Schulman, Vice Chair
• Michele Andrus
  Mildred Browne
  Somer Harding
  Sara Jocham
  Betty Karnette
  Christina Mills
  Gloria Perez-Stewart
  Lester Pincu
  Keila Rodriguez
  Kimberly Salomonson
  Mariano Sanz
  Steven Winlock

Student Members

• Leanne Libas

Legislative Members

• Vacant, Senate
• Tony Thurmond, Assembly

State Board of Education

• Niki Sandoval, Liaison

State Special Schools

• Scott Kerby, Director, State Special Schools and Services Division 
  California Department of Education

Executive Secretary

• Kristin Wright, Director, Special Education Division
  California Department of Education

Agenda Times Are Approximate and Are Provided for Convenience Only

Items may be re-ordered to be heard on any day of the noticed meeting. The order of business may be changed without notice. Every effort will be made to Webcast this meeting in its entirety, but some portions may not be Webcast due to logistical constraints.

Advisory Commission on Special Education

Meeting Schedule	Meeting Location
Wednesday, February 22, 2017 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Pacific Time ±	California Department of Education 1430 N Street, Room 1101  Sacramento, California 916-445-4602
Thursday, February 23, 2017 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. Pacific Time ±	California Department of Education 1430 N Street, Room 1101  Sacramento, California 916-445-4602

Advisory Commission on Special Education
Breaking Barriers Ad-Hoc Workgroup
(Due to logistical constraints, the Ad-Hoc Workgroup will not be Webcast)

Meeting Schedule	Meeting Location
Wednesday, February 22, 2017 8 - 9:45 a.m. Pacific Time ±	California Department of Education 1430 N Street, Room 1801 Sacramento, California 916-445-4602

Please see the detailed agenda for more information about the items to be considered and acted upon. The public is welcome.

Guidelines for Public Input Sessions

The Commission welcomes public involvement. Opportunities for public comment are provided at every Commission meeting.

Reasonable Accommodation for Any Individual With a Disability

Pursuant to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, any individual with a disability who requires reasonable accommodation to attend or participate in a meeting or function of the Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE), may request assistance by contacting the Special Education Division, 1430 N Street, Suite 2401, Sacramento, CA, 95814; telephone, 916-445-4602; fax, 916-327-3706.

---

Advisory Commission on Special Education
Breaking Barriers Ad-Hoc Workgroup
Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 8–9:45 a.m. Pacific Time
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1801
Sacramento, California

(Due to logistical constraints, the Ad-Hoc Workgroup will not be Webcast)

Members of the ACSE Breaking Barriers Ad Hoc Workgroup will be meeting prior to the start of the ACSE meeting to discuss opportunities and challenges at the state level related to collaboration across systems to transform children's social, emotional, and behavioral health.

AGENDA

1. Review of problem statement
   
2. Discuss the purpose of a proposed Coordinating Council
   
3. Discuss ideal group members
   
4. Discuss proposed problem statement providing rationale for a coordinated group effort in order to seek resolution
   
5. Discuss the role of ACSE in this work and possible next steps

---

Advisory Commission on Special Education
Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 10 a.m. Pacific Time
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101 
Sacramento, California 

NOTE: Items not heard or completed on February 22, 2017, may be carried over to February 23, 2017.ACSE Agenda February 22-23, 2017 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education):

ACSE Agenda February 22-23, 2017 - Administration & Support (CA Dept of Education):

About That Bill Abolishing The Department Of Education : NPR Ed : NPR

About That Bill Abolishing The Department Of Education : NPR Ed : NPR:

About That Bill Abolishing The Department Of Education

Tuesday was a busy day for education policy.

Betsy DeVos, you may have heard, was confirmed as Secretary of Education with an unprecedented tiebreaker vote.

The House of Representatives also voted to throw out a lot of rules that were decided on just last year. These rules tell states how to comply with the new federal education law with regard to identifying and improving underperforming schools, as well as evaluating teacher-preparation programs in higher education.

And, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican representing Kentucky's 4th District, introduced a bill in the House as well. Here is the text of that bill, in full:

"The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018."

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has introduced a bill in the House stating: "The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018."

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

Speculation about DeVos and what her leadership might bring has generated millions of clicks this week. For insight on these other two developments, I called up David Schoenbrod. He's a professor at New York Law School and the author of several books about the Congressional role in crafting law and regulation.

Spoiler alert: The Education Department is unlikely to be eliminated, particularly by a bill that declines to specify who or what would take over its $68 billion annual budget and the functions of data collection, oversight, civil rights enforcement and student aid, among others.

"Whatever you think about the Department of Education, the idea you could eliminate it with a one-sentence bill is just posturing," Schoenbrod says. "Posturing is not something that's just done by Democrats or by Republicans. It's done by both."

NPR ED

Reaction To DeVos Vote Is Swift, And Divided

This issue is personal for Schoenbrod. Back in the 1970s, Schoenbrod was staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, fighting for Congress to ban lead in gasoline — which made its way into air, water and the bloodstreams of children with harmful and deadly effect. Because legislators did not specify a timeline or a mechanism, he argues, enforcement was delayed by a decade. "They voted for the symbolism but didn't want to take responsibility for how it was done," Schoenbrod says.

In the field of environmental law, this form of kicking the can down the road is known About That Bill Abolishing The Department Of Education : NPR Ed : NPR:

CURMUDGUCATION: Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part I)

CURMUDGUCATION: Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part I):

Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part I)

Last week the American Enterprise Institute hosted an afternoon of reformy navel gazing, featuring an all-start lineup and centered around the general topic of race and the specific issue of whether the Great Reform Coalition was about to fall apart because (I'm paraphrasing) there's an actively racist administration taking power in DC and some reformsters are much more comfortable with that than others. Or, to paraphrase it from another point of view, because there are some reformsters are letting concerns about race and social justice get in the way of the practical pursuit of some swell reform objectives. Or, to synoptically paraphrase, the broad reform coalition could kind of hold it together when a Democratic faux-progressive administration was providing camouflage for conservative policies to be palatable to nominal progressives.

Well, you can see the problem.

At any rate, AEI mustered up two full panels on the subject, which is in itself an interesting choice because AEI is not known in some quarters for its enlightened non-racist behavior. But hey, who knows. Anyway, these videos add up to over two hours, so I'm going to take them in two posts. Because I've watched these so that you don't have to.

Introduction

After an intro slide of AEI's edifice, displayed with some supermarket music playing along, Rick Hess (AEI's ed guy) does the general introduction for these extraordinary panels discussing thorny issues in a remarkable conversation. AEI does not skimp on modifiers. Also we learn that New Schools Venture Fund, a reformy financier, is a co-sponsor today. Also Education Next which is the magazine where AEI and Fordham Institute put their thoughts.

America, says Hess, has some real challenges, and an increasing polarization problem that keeps us from discussing important issues in respectful or constructive ways. Education especially, and Hess's explanation of what education is about is a good one (creating communities, future, good broad big picture stuff). Sure we will disagree, but can we disagree like grown-ups (my word). On the one hand, Hess appears to be talking about intramural fights in the reform community, not the kind of CURMUDGUCATION: Reformsters Contemplate Race (Part I):

Progressives Lost The Vote On DeVos But Won Something Else

2/9/2017 – Progressives Lost The Vote On DeVos But Won Something Else:
Progressives Lost The Vote On DeVos But Won Something Else

 February 9, 2017 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: Why Dislike DeVos … Closing USDoE … Ending ESSA Rules … School Segregation … Civics Education

TOP STORY

Progressives Lost The Vote On DeVos But Won Something Else

By Jeff Bryant

“Betsy DeVos may have won her contest in the Senate to become the new U.S. Secretary of Education, but her opposition wasn’t the only thing that went down to defeat that day. For decades, federal education policies have been governed by a “Washington Consensus” that public schools are effectively broken … and the only way to fix them is to apply a dose of tough love and a business philosophy of competition from charter schools and performance measurements based on standardized tests … That consensus appears dead … But what looks like the death of a political consensus on education could be the beginning of something else.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

How Betsy Devos Became Trump’s Most Controversial Nominee

Vox

“Vice President Mike Pence broke a Senate tie to confirm Betsy DeVos, 51-50, as the next education secretary … So the thousands of Americans who called their senators begging them to vote against DeVos, in the end, aren’t going to get what they want … But that doesn’t mean the opposition failed utterly… DeVos, a billionaire Republican donor with scant experience with traditional public schools, has sparked an overwhelming response from activists … Americans don’t usually get this worked up about education. But DeVos might have struck a chord because education is a subject that many people take personally – and one that affects even white, upper-middle-class people.”
Read more …

GOP Lawmaker Proposes Abolishing Department Of Education

The Hill

“On the same day the Senate confirmed President Trump’s secretary of Education pick by a historically narrow margin, a House Republican introduced legislation to abolish the entire department Betsy DeVos will lead. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie’s bill is only a page long, after merely stating the Department of Education would terminate on Dec. 31, 2018.”
Read more …

House Republicans Move To Scrap Rules On ESSA, Teacher Preparation

Education Week

“Republican lawmakers in Congress are moving to do away with regulations from the Obama administration regarding accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act and teacher preparation … If these regulations are overturned, President Donald Trump’s administration would be prohibited from issuing ‘substantially similar’ regulations on these two issues if there isn’t a new law signed … These moves by GOP lawmakers don’t immediately end those ESSA accountability and teacher-prep rules. However, they signal that the Republicans are preparing to do away with them.”
Read more …

How Segregated Schools Built Segregated Cities

City Lab

“We’ve gotten used to explaining the segregation we see in our schools by pointing to the segregation we see in our neighborhoods … That explanation has it backwards. In many cities across the U.S., public schools were the first and nearly always the most effective of the tools white residents had to police the boundaries of their neighborhoods. Often, it was school segregation that created neighborhood segregation, not the other way around.”
Read more …

Why Teaching Civics in America’s Classrooms Must Be a Trump-Era Priority

Mother Jones

“American public schools … were founded to maintain a pluralistic democracy and protect citizens against the tyranny of the majority. Advocates for the public education system argued that the unique American experiment wouldn’t work without it – that schools were the most effective mechanism for instilling civic values… Courses in civic studies were common in American high schools …   All that changed most notably in the 1980s, when, in addition to earlier cuts in civic studies, policymakers began shifting the focus from social studies toward easily testable subjects like math and reading … In 2011, all federal funding for civics and social studies was eliminated.”
Read more …

2/9/2017 – Progressives Lost The Vote On DeVos But Won Something Else: