Washington (CNN) Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday addressed the deadly shooting at Santa Fe High School in Texas, telling House lawmakers the shooting “was only the most recent, devastating reminder that our nation must come together to address the underlying issues that create a culture of violence.”
“Our commitment to every student’s success is one we must renew every day, but first we must ensure our children are safe at school,” she said.
DeVos also said the school safety commission she oversees, which was created in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, shooting earlier this year, “looks forward to delivering best practices and findings by year’s end” and gave lawmakers some details of the group’s most recent meeting last week. She described that meeting as “one of the first broader listening sessions” and said members heard from parents of students that had been killed in school shootings.
She stressed that the “primary responsibility for the physical security of schools rests with states and local communities, and made no mention of gun measures or reforms.
Betsy DeVos pushes back against criticism over “60 Minutes” interview, March 12, 2018
DeVos’s Capitol Hill testimony Tuesday marked her fifth time testifying before congressional lawmakers and comes on the heels of a trip to New York in which she was criticized for not visiting any public schools. Instead, DeVos toured two Orthodox Jewish schools and spoke in support of public funding for religious schools.
While DeVos was questioned by several lawmakers about school safety in the wake of another deadly shooting, the issue was not the overwhelming focus of the broad hearing. DeVos took questions on a wide variety of topics including her response to teacher walkouts across the nation, the agency’s Office for Civil Rights and her commitment to the rights of LGBTQ students.
She was pressed by Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott — the committee’s top Democrat — over whether she had approved state education plans that violate the law. Scott repeatedly pressed DeVos on plans where school grades don’t include subgroup performance, suggesting that allowed states to ignore disadvantaged groups.
“All of the plans that I have approved follow what the law requires and it will, we will continue to do so,” DeVos said.
“How do you address an achievement gap if subgroup performance isn’t addressed,” Scott asked DeVos.
At one point during the hearing Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson asked DeVos if she was aware she was “resegregating” the nation’s schools by expanding school choice programs, and in turn, transferring federal funds away from public schools.
Nearly three months—and six school shootings—since President Donald Trump created a commission to seek solutions to school violence, the Cabinet-level panel is being slammed for what critics see as its slack pace, lack of transparency, and limited representation.
Advocates, parents, and educators note that the commission, which is led by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, has met only once since it was set up in the wake of February’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. They say there’s been very little outreach to the education community. And they worry that the commission seems to have already made up its mind about where to go on school safety.
“It really begs the question of how seriously they are taking this situation,” said Myrna Mandalowitz, the director of government relations at the School Social Work Association of America. “It’s past time for this commission to meet and get the ball rolling.”
Besides DeVos, the commission includes Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen. It has had one organizational meeting, on March 28. Since the commission was first announced on March 11, there have been six school shootings resulting in death or injury, according to Education Week tracking of such incidents…
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By Dr. Elizabeth Primas, Program Manager, NNPA/ESSA Public Awareness Campaign
When the best educators in America traveled to Washington, D.C. for a series of events celebrating innovation in the classroom and to share best practices in K-12 education, they let officials at the Department of Education and the White House know exactly how they felt about the Trump Administration’s current push for school choice programs.
According to edchoice.org, school choice programs allow, “public education funds to follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs—whether that’s to a public school, private school, charter school, home school.”
In April 2018, the Department of Education (ED) hosted the “Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.’s Drum Major Legacy: Innovative Pathways to Success” celebration; the event was sponsored by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans in collaboration with the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
The Education Department’s MLK Legacy event honored individuals who perform extraordinary acts of service in their communities, specifically those individuals who support high-quality education for children of color. Many of the awardees work with parents or community groups that provide primary care for children; some even provide educational support services outside of the traditional public school model.
School choice became a hot topic during the event, as several attendees were visibly disgruntled at the mention of the controversial approach.
The Trump Administration has proposed to decrease funding to authorized investments for public schools while increasing funding opportunities for school choice programs and private school vouchers. Ninety percent of children in America attend public schools. Increased funding to school choice programs, while reducing funding to public schools is a strategy that leaves behind our most vulnerable students.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has repeatedly said that she’s committed to uphold the intentions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the education law signed by President Barack Obama. However, the prioritization of school choice programs in the proposed FY2019 budget contradicts one of the original intentions of the law: to promote equity and increase access to high-quality education for all students. Furthermore, prioritization of school choice isolates homeless children, migrant children, youth in foster care and children from military families. In fact, ESSA requires that school districts report student outcomes for these groups for the very first time.
The 2018 Teacher of the Year awardees echoed similar concerns during their annual White House visit in April. The top teachers in the country reported that they did not approve of funding private schools at the expense of their most vulnerable, at-risk students.
Every child should be entitled to high-quality education in the United States of America. Every neighborhood school should be equipped to provide high-quality courses and curriculum. Every student should have highly-qualified teachers and a menu of extra-curricular activities to choose from. Until the administration prioritizes the equitable improvement of all schools, their verbal commitment to uphold the original intent of ESSA is just another “alternative fact.”
Learn more about the Every Student Succeeds Act at nnpa.org/essa.
Jayme S. Ganey, Special to The Informer via DiversityInc.
There is no sanctuary for children in President Donald Trump’s racist world, and now schools can be a tool for deporting children and parents.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Tuesday before the House Education and Workforce Committee that schools and local communities decide whether to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they suspect their students are undocumented.
With reports presented at the hearing of parents being arrested by ICE outside their children’s schools, DeVos gave the same blanket response to every question:
“I would just say we are both a nation of laws and we are a compassionate people,” she said. “And I think it’s important that we follow the laws of the land, and if it’s important that laws be changed I encourage this body to do so.”
But one of those laws is a ruling from 1982’s Plyer v. Doe that guarantees the right to education for all immigrant children. And ICE was discouraged from entering schools previously by Homeland Security, but there are exceptions. Some schools have protected students assuring them that without legal pressure, they will not out the children and families.
DeVos’ remarks put no support behind communities trying to provide sanctuary.
Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) President Thomas Saenz said in a statement, “Her testimony … stems either from an astounding ignorance of the law or from an insupportable unwillingness to accurately advise local school districts. Either of these indicates a severe dereliction of duty.”
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who confronted DeVos with the issue at the hearing, released a statement saying: “Sec. Betsy DeVos is unqualified to lead the U.S. Department of Education, and her reckless statements regarding undocumented youth, not only conflict with the law, but will lead to fear and intimidation among immigrant students across the country.”
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.
Earlier this year, shortly after 17 students and teachers were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., President Donald Trump created a school commission, led by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, to explore solutions.
And now that there has been another deadly school shooting, at Santa Fe High School in Texas, educators, parents, and others, including advocates in Washington and folks on social media, are wondering just what the commission has been up to since its inception in early March.
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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U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has given the thumbs up to two more state Every Student Succeeds Act plans: Alaska and Iowa.
That brings the total number of states with approved plans to 44, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Still waiting for the OK: California, Florida, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Utah.
Alaska is working local interim tests into its accountability system, as a measure of school quality or student success for elementary schools. The state will also consider chronic absenteeism and literacy by 3rd grade. High schools will be measured on chronic absenteeism, “on track” freshmen, and how many students are eligible for “Alaska Performance Scholarships,” which are based on GPA, completion of a certain curriculum, and achieving a certain score on tests such as the ACT. The state also makes it clear it can’t ‘”coerce” a parent to make a child take standardized tests…
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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…
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New federal data on bullying, discipline, and school safety should prompt tough questions about why certain groups of students are unfairly singled out. Could it also prevent Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from rescinding Obama-era guidance on school discipline? Today’s Federal Flash addresses that question, highlights new people taking over top positions at the U.S. Department of Education, and covers interesting comments on education coming from top Republicans on Capitol Hill.
On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Education released the 2015-2016 Civil Right Data Collection or CRDC, a biennial snap shot of data on bullying, discipline, and school safety among other items.
The data shows that black students and students with disabilities are suspended and arrested far more often than their peers. Given the information, many are hoping this will prevent the department from rescinding Obama-era guidance on school discipline that was designed to address those problems.
The data also confirms racial disparities across students when it comes to success in science, technology, engineering and math courses. For example, 85 percent of white eighth graders who were enrolled in Algebra I passed the course, compared to only 72 percent of Latino students and 65 percent of black students. Among Native American students and students of two or more races, fewer than 50 percent passed the course.
The data also show that high schools with high percentages of black and Latino students are less likely to offer advanced math and science courses like calculus, physics, chemistry and advanced math.
In other news from the Education Department, several empty positions have been filled. On April 18, the Senate confirmed Carlos Muñiz to serve as the Education Department’s top lawyer.
In his role as General Counsel, Muñiz will be charged with tackling some of the stickiest legal issues confronting the Department including determining whether states are complying with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), deciding whether to rescind the school discipline guidance mentioned earlier, and laying out new rules for colleges handling allegations of sexual assault on campuses under Title IX.
Nearly three months—and six school shootings—since President Donald Trump created a commission to seek solutions to school violence, the Cabinet-level panel is being slammed for what critics see as its slack pace, lack of transparency, and limited representation.
Jayme S. Ganey, Special to The Informer via DiversityInc.
https://youtu.be/YF3zO2shiQc