Broad and loud opposition to DeVos' voucher plans

Trump's Ed Secretary Betsy DeVos is determined to use the Dept. of Education's federal grant program as a weapon against public education. DeVos' stated number-one priority for the program is to “maximize” “educational choice". This means taking billions of dollars away from public school classrooms to promote school vouchers and privately run charters.

States that adopt her program, will be heavily rewarded, while those that don't will be punished. I should note that Obama's former Ed Secs, Arne Duncan and John King also used their $5B grant program to push charters and punish states that wouldn't adopt their failed "Race to the Top" program which included massive school closings and teacher firings. But DeVos' plan is Duncan squared with vouchers and "scholarships" for private schools put at the top of the list.

DeVos' Proposed Supplemental Priorities and Definitions for Discretionary Grant Programs has been met with loud opposition from a coalition of 50 school, community and civil rights organizations. The National Coalition for Public Education which includes both national teachers' unions, AASA: The School Superintendents Association, the National PTA, disability rights groups, the NAACP, and others is dead set against DeVos's priorities.

Their statement reads in part:

The Department should not reward states for adopting voucher programs that do not serve all students, fail to improve academic achievement, undermine public education funding, harm religious freedom and lack critical accountability for taxpayers. Instead, the Department of Education’s first priority should be funding, supporting, and strengthening our public schools, where 90% of our students attend.

It's a strong statement on vouchers, but unfortunately makes no mention of privately-run charter schools, the second leg of the destructive, right-wing Trump/DeVos "choice" initiative. While some groups within the coalition, like the NAACP, have been highly critical of charters, others haven't. So I'm assuming that the anti-voucher statement was the best possible without splitting the group.

In any regard, I doubt that DeVos (if she remains in power) will pay much attention to the statement unless it is backed up with protests in the streets and at schools.

Side note on charters...

Charter school operators who stand to gain from Trump/DeVos initiatives as well as from the biggest private foundations, have put their stamp of approval on DeVos' "choice" priorities. However, they do have one small criticism. They want the word "quality" put in front of "charter schools".

Quality is NACSA code language to signify that only the largest and richest charter school chains get the grants and that small, teacher-run, unionized, or "mom & pops" charters are eliminated.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

They really cast the deciding vote on healthcare bill. 

Tim Hogan, spokesman for Our Lives on the Line

“The resistance showed up – we called, we came to meetings, we rallied in the rain, and last night we won a critical victory in the fight to protect our care. But we know that President Trump and [Senate majority] Leader [Mitch] McConnell’s reckless determination to imperil the wellbeing of millions of Americans has not gone away... We’re not waiting for their next attack.”  --Guardian

 NAACP

The conclusion of this set of hearings may have been best summed up by Chris Ungar, Past President, of the California School Boards Association:

Can charter schools be part of the solution? Absolutely. But that solution must be intentional, well-planned growth that takes into account the health and sustainability of the entire public education system, including the so-called traditional public schools that educate 90% of our country’s students. -- Task Force Report

Troy LaRaviere give report to CPS Board

CPAA Pres. Troy LaRaviere to CPS Board of Ed

“When has this district ever attempted to shut down three majority white schools in one year?” he asked before turning to [CPS second-in-Command, Janice] Jackson. 

Our principals love you, they’re very disappointed because you were one of us. When are you going to leave this cesspool and come back home? Come back home, sister.” -- Sun-Times

Fred Klonsky

"The morality is...all working people ought to have a pension, live a life of comfort, without worrying about health care or where they're going to live. That's what a humane system looks like. To treat old folks with dignity and with honor." -- Live From the Heartland Radio

Phil Kadner

All Americans deserve the same health care as Sen. John McCain. -- Sun-Times

Tony Sanders, CEO of IL's second largest school district

 “If prior bills failed because they took away from the rich to give to the poor, why would I support a bill that takes money from the poor to give to the rich?” -- Mark Brown's column in Sun-Times

Andy Borowitz

 Harland Dorrinson, who voted for Trump “because he promised that he would take my health care away from me on Day 1,” said that he was “very upset” that he will still receive that benefit. “I woke up this morning, and my family and I could still see a doctor,” he said. “This is a betrayal.” -- New Yorker 

Trump afraid to face NAACP. Sends underling. Group stands firm on charters.

NAACP 2017

The racist character of the current White House (aptly named for its lack of black faces) became even more apparent when Trump turned down the NAACP's invitation to address its 2017 convention. Instead DT sent his beleaguered underling, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, to represent the face of this administration. The results weren't pretty.

As you might expect, Rosenstein got a "chilly reception" when he repeated Trump's racist garbage about black crime and urban "carnage" and tried to downplay the current mayhem in the Justice Dept. with his boss, AG Jeff Sessions at the center of it.

POLITICO reports:

Rosenstein used his six-minute address to pay homage to Trump by citing one of his most polarizing speeches: the inaugural address where he railed against "carnage" in the streets of America.

"In President Trump’s inaugural address, he said that Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands," Rosenstein said.

Rosenstein got a tepid reaction from the group, with organizers exhorting the crowd to give him more applause both as he took the stage and as he wrapped up.

 "Our goal is not to fill prisons. Our goal is to save lives," Rosenstein said, as his comments were interrupted by a smattering of applause.

Nothing of course, could be further from the truth. Trump's goal has been precisely to fill the prisons with black, Latino and immigrant bodies. Especially the now burgeoning industry of private prisons whose owners are among his biggest campaign contributors.

Responses...

   “Stop talking to us about the mythology of black crime," Rev. William Barber II said as many in the audience stood and cheered. "If you’re going to talk to us about black crime, talk to use about the Wall Street criminals that never get charged."

Many of those who addressed the convention Tuesday railed against the Trump administration and its efforts to repeal Obamacare.

"Stop texting lies. Stop telling lies. Stop turning people against each other with lies," said Barber, a leader of the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina. "Until you stop, we can’t move.”

"It gets dark sometime, but let nothing break our spirit," Rev. Jesse Jackson told the group. "Stand up. March up. We will outlast Trump and we will outlast this dark night."

Charter schools...

A NAACP task force that spent several months traveling the country learning about charter schools released a report Wednesday with the group’s conclusions. The report comes less than a year after the civil rights organization passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on the growth of charter schools last October. The new report calls on the NAACP to create a plan of action and a new coalition of groups to push back on charter schools’ lack of accountability and transparency.

The report notes that while charter schools were created to act as labs of innovation and share their best ideas with public schools, “this aspect of the promise never materialized.”

While making some concessions to some of its pro-charter affiliates, the organization, which has been under tremendous pressure from the administration and powerful corporate "reform" groups to retreat, appears to be standing firm on calling for more charter accountability and restraints on the expansion of privately-run charters.

According to the Baltimore Sun:

The NAACP is calling for tighter restrictions on charter schools and the elimination of for-profit charters as part of a broad array of actions leaders want to see taken on the local and national level to improve public education for children of color.

 In calling for more accountability, the NAACP wants local school districts to be the only body that can approve, or give a charter to, a new school. That restriction already exists in Maryland, which is one of the few states with charter laws that require all charter schools to be part of local school systems.Many states allow other entities, such as universities, to decide whether a school should be permitted to operate as a charter.

Huffington Post reports:

 During a time when the Trump administration is working to expand the number of charter schools in the name of civil rights, the symbolic importance of pushback from the nation’s oldest civil rights organization looms large. The report recommends the full elimination of for-profit charter schools. For-profit schools aren’t allowed in a number of states, but are prevalent in Michigan, the home state of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. 

“The widespread findings of misconduct and poor student performance in for-profit charter schools, demands the elimination of these schools,” says the report.

More to come on this.