Andrew Ujifusa, Author at NNPA ESSA MEDIA CAMPAIGN Page 2 of 8

DeVos: It Would Be a ‘Terrible Mistake’ for States Not to Expand School Choice

by Andrew Ujifusa | May 29, 2018 | Betsy DeVos, Education Week, K12 Education, National, President Donald Trump, School Choice, Trump Administration

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos used a speech at the American Federation for Children’s national summit in Indianapolis on Monday to rally states behind the cause of expanding school choice, even though the Trump administration won’t force them to do so.

In the speech before the school choice advocacy group that DeVos used to lead, the education secretary said President Donald Trump soon will propose “the most ambitious expansion of education choice in our nation’s history.”

She didn’t provide any details on how those choice programs would work as the Trump administration prepares to release its fiscal 2018 budget. But DeVos did say that while Washington won’t force states into expanding choice programs and will leave states a lot of flexibility, those states that decline to do so will be held accountable by their constituents.

“If a state doesn’t want to participate, that would be a terrible mistake on their part,” DeVos said. “They will be hurting the children and families who can least afford it. If politicians in a state block education choice, it means those politicians do not support equal opportunity for all kids…”

Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.

DeVos Defends Civil Rights Record

by Andrew Ujifusa | May 23, 2018 | Betsy DeVos, Education, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, National

House Democrats and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos sparred over civil rights, the Every Student Succeeds Act, and teachers’ salaries at a hearing Tuesday, but lawmakers from both parties largely avoided controversial questions about school safety in the aftermath of a Texas high school shooting last week that left 10 students and staff dead.

Appearing before the House education committee, DeVos emphasized that the federal school safety commission she leads is working quickly, and that its ultimate goal is to ensure that schools “have the tools to be able to make the right decisions to protect their own buildings and their own communities.”

She said the commission was developing a timeline for its work, but also said that she planned to have the commission report its findings by year’s end.

“We are looking forward to [hearing from] every interest group, every constituency, particularly teachers, parents, and law enforcement and school leadership,” DeVos told lawmakers, later adding that, “We seek to look at models across the country.”

The commission has only met once since it was created in March after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., although the secretary met last week with school safety researchers, as well as parents of children killed in school shootings. Its other members are Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. DeVos previously has said that schools should be able to decide if they want to provide staff with firearms to improve safety, but did not share detailed personal opinions on school safety in general with the committee…

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Source: Education Week Politics K-12. May require Education Week subscription.

Five Things to Watch for When Betsy DeVos Makes Rare Visit to Capitol Hill

by Andrew Ujifusa | May 21, 2018 | Betsy DeVos, Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, National, School Choice, U.S. Department of Education

The secretary will speak to lawmakers on the House education committee about the “policies and priorities” of the U.S. Department of Education. Compared to her predecessors, DeVos hasn’t been on Capitol Hill a lot during her roughly 16 months as education secretary, at least in terms of public appearances: She’s testified before spending committies three times, and once to the Senate education committee for her rocky confirmation hearing in January 2017. Tuesday’s hearing would be the first time she’s testified before the House committee that deals with K-12 issues.

DeVos has met privately a few times recently with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. But education committee lawmakers haven’t had the chance to ask DeVos detailed questions in public about her track record. In fact, on Friday, House committee Democrats sent out a fact sheet pointing out that her predecessors spent significantly more time testifying to Congress over comparable periods of time. In former Secretary Arne Duncan’s first 15 months, for example, he testified to Congress nine times.

With a big House election in November coming up, Dems on Tuesday might be particularly eager to trip DeVos up during her testimony and spin what they see as embarassing sound bites into campaign ads.

So what might lawmakers ask DeVos? Democrats in particular will have pointed questions for her in the name of opposition party oversight; here are a few prominent items that might come up…

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School Officials Urge Congress to Update Student-Data Privacy Law

by Andrew Ujifusa | May 19, 2018 | Betsy DeVos, Education Week, Facebook, K12 Education, National, US Department of Education

School officials urged federal lawmakers to update the law governing the handling and disclosure of student data, saying that it must provide more clarity to education leaders and reflect challenges educators face in the digital learning environment.

In a hearing at the House education committee Thursday, school leaders and advocates also discussed how they try to safeguard important data on children, from faculty training to limiting the type of data that’s collected.

Data privacy issues in general have become more prominent this year following revelations about the mishandling of Facebook users’ data, for example. It’s unclear to how changes to how Facebook handles data might impact K-12. But altering how federal law deals with these complicated data-privacy issues has proven to be a challenge on Capitol Hill.

Practices that rely on students’ data can “greatly enrich the student experience” and inform teachers’ work, said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the committee chairwoman. However, she also said in opening remarks, “Questions of privacy will always accompany any discussion of student data collection, as well they should.”

She stressed that more must be done to protect student data, including updating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), first enacted in 1974…

Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.

Two School Choice Champions in Congress Squared Off for a Senate Seat. Both Lost.

by Andrew Ujifusa | May 18, 2018 | Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), k-12, National, School Choice

In a heated primary battle between two prominent supporters of school choice on Capitol Hill, a third candidate stepped in and beat them.

Indiana GOP Reps. Luke Messer and Todd Rokita lost in a three-way race for the GOP nomination to run for Indiana’s U.S. Senate seat to Mike Braun, a businessman. Braun will be the Republican nominee against Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., in the November Senate election. He captured 41.2 percent of the vote on Tuesday with 99 percent of precincts reporting, with Rokita getting 30 percent and Messer earning 28.9 percent.

On the section of his campaign website covering his main positions, Braun did not highlight education, although he does advocate for less government spending. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment about his positions on K-12 issues.

We profiled the potential face-off between Messer and Rokita last summer, before either had officially declared their candidacy for the GOP nomination. The two have been rivals for some time, and traded personal accusations as they sought the nomination, which may have created an opening for Braun to step in and win the primary…

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School Safety Forum Held by Florida Senators Highlights Prevention, Security

by Andrew Ujifusa | Apr 20, 2018 | Education Week, Florida, Indiana, K12 Education, school safety

Washington, DC — A school safety forum on Capitol Hill hosted by Florida’s U.S. senators focused on how to help students head off threats from their peers, and on improving security measures for schools, among other topics.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican, also used the event here on Wednesday to tout their support for having the federal government offer states incentives to adopt “red flag” laws that prevent those who represent a threat to themselves or others from accessing or purchasing firearms, while preserving legal protetions for those individuals. Rubio and Nelson introduced a bill to this effect, the Extreme Risk Protection Order and Violence Prevention Act, last month, after the school shooting in Parkland, Fla.

Advocates and public officials also emphasized the importance of communication at various stages to help address school violence, from making it easier for students to share their concerns with adults, to helping law enforcement respond to violent incidents more quickly.

Nicole Hockley, whose son was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, highlighted the “Start With Hello” training program that helps children communicate with each other about their difficulties. The program is run by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit group led by Hockley that works to prevent children from violence. “It sounds so simple. But the best programs are,” Hockley said.

And Indiana officials attending the session pointed to a school that’s become a model for new security measures, from bullet-resistant classroom doors to smoke bombs that can fill a hallway and disorient a school shooter. (The latter clocks in at a cost of $400,000.) Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill said the state has emphasized “what we can do to harden our schools, but not make them a prison.”

In expressing interest in creating national school safety standards, Rubio pointed to the Americans With Disabilities Act that created national building standards to address the needs of people with disabilities. While he said the analogy to gun violence and school safety isn’t perfect, “It’s an indication of where federal policy could help over time.” He also expressed an interest in making it easier somehow for school leaders to discover “best practices” for safety, so that “they can hear from one another about what other places are doing…”

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Betsy DeVos Is About to Defend Her Budget. Keep These Three Things in Mind

by Andrew Ujifusa | Mar 18, 2018 | Betsy DeVos, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, National, Trump Administration, U.S. Department of Education

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is headed back to the Hill.

On Tuesday morning, DeVos will pitch the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget plan for the Department of Education to the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees federal money for K-12. It’s a safe bet that DeVos’ public appearance before lawmakers will draw a crowd, given the hub-bub over her “60 Minutes” interview a week ago.

So what else can we expect besides the hot glare of the spotlight? Be sure to watch these three elements of the hearing:

1) Cuts Have Come Back

What’s changed between last year’s Trump budget request for education and this year’s? Aside from the total amount desired for the Education Department, not a ton. A lot was made last year about the Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 request to cut over $9 billion from the department, or about 13.5 percent. This year, the Trump team wants to cut 5 percent from DeVos’ department.

Like last year, the budget plan also proposes expanding school choice. This time around, there’s a $1 billion pot pitched for public and private school choice, although the divisions between those two aren’t as clear as they were in the fiscal 2018 budget. Like last year, DeVos also wants to eliminate both Title II, which covers professional development for educators, as well as Title IV, which covers a variety of programs like ed-tech, counseling services, and Advanced Placement course fees. Right now Title II gets about $2 billion, and Title IV gets $400 million…

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Sen. Lamar Alexander Backs Changes to ESSA to Improve School Safety

by Andrew Ujifusa | Mar 6, 2018 | Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, National, school safety, Tennessee

The chairman of the Senate education committee wants to change the main federal education law to allow schools to hire more counselors, make infrastructure improvements, and fund violence-prevention programs.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., announced Tuesday that he would introduce the School Safety and Mental Health Service Improvement Act at some point this week. Among other things, it would change Title IV, which gets $400 billion in the fiscal 2018 federal budget, in order to let schools pay for new safety technology, “physical security,” and training school personnel to help them recognize and defuse threats of violence. And his proposal would also change Title II to make it easier for the $2 billion program for educator professional development to fund school counselors. Both Title II and Title IV are part of the Every Student Succeeds Act—Title IV was created when ESSA became law in 2015.

School safety has been a prominent topic in Congress since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last month that left 17 students and school staff members dead. There are already several bills in Congress designed to enhanced school safety, although it’s unclear what their prospects are on Capitol Hill…

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Trump Seeks to Cut Education Budget by 5 Percent, Expand School Choice Push

by Andrew Ujifusa | Feb 12, 2018 | Education Week, ESSA, Every Student Succeeds Act, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), K12 Education, Louisiana, National, New Mexico, US Department of Education

President Donald Trump is seeking a roughly 5 percent cut to the U.S. Department of Education’s budget for fiscal 2019 in a proposal that also mirrors his spending plan from last year by seeking to eliminate a major teacher-focused grant and to expand school choice.

Trump’s proposed budget, released Monday, would provide the Education Department with $63.2 billion in discretionary aid, a $3.6 billion cut—or 5.3 percent— from current spending levels, for the budget year starting Oct. 1. That’s actually less of a cut than what the president sought for fiscal 2018, when he proposed slashing $9.2 billion—or 13.5 percent—from the department.

In order to achieve those proposed spending cuts, the president copied two major education cuts he proposed last year: the elimination of Title II teacher grants and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Those two cuts combined would come to about $3.1 billion from current levels. Overall, 39 discretionary programs would be cut, eliminated, or “streamlined.”

“Decades of investments and billions of dollars in spending have shown that an increase in funding does not guarantee high-quality education,” the Office of Management and Budget states in the budget document. “While the budget reduces the overall federal role in education, the budget makes strategic investments to support and empower families and improve access to postsecondary education, ensuring a future of prosperity for all Americans.”

On the other side of the ledger, Trump is seeking $1 billion for new private and public school choice programs called Opportunity Grants. This new funding could also help schools that go for the weighted-funding pilot. He also wants $500 million in federal charter school funding, an increase of roughly 50 percent from current spending levels, which is also the same as his first budget blueprint.

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Lawmakers Press Trump to Spend on Public School Infrastructure

by Andrew Ujifusa | Jan 18, 2018 | Education Week, K12 Education, National, President Donald Trump

A group of lawmakers has told President Donald Trump that new funding for improving school facilities is “essential for advancing student achievement” and should be a part of any broader infrastructure spending plan.

In a Wednesday letter to Trump, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., along with 23 other senators, all Democrats, highlighted a 2014 federal study that said it would take $197 billion to pay for repairs, modernizations, and renovations needed by U.S. schools, or about $4.5 million per school (53 percent of schools reported in the study’s survey that such actions were necessary). They also cite a separate 2016 report which reported that the nation underfunds school construction by $38 billion every year.

In November, Education Week released a comprehensive report on how school leaders are rethinking school design and facilities.

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