The U.S. Department of Education responded to these concerns at the end of last week, publishing a list of Frequently Asked Questions that seeks to explain exactly what its letters to three states, the first feedback states have gotten from the Trump team on ESSA, actually meant when it comes to DeVos’ approach to the law. The document may not clear up every question states and others may have, however. More on that below…
The commission, which made the move on Friday, plans to take a closer look at civil rights enforcement across the government, including the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development.
The panel is particularly concerned that the Trump administration is seeking to cut the budgets of the civil rights arms of these agencies. And it is bothered by statements by some cabinet officials, including U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, that the commisssion says may demonstrate that the Trump administration isn’t going to take civil rights enforcement seriously. (DeVos is, in fact, the only cabinet official the statement mentions by name)…
This past week over 4,200 advocates, teachers, policymakers, administrators, consultants, and board members attended the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ (NAPCS) 2017 National Charter School Conference in Washington DC.
The conference boasted over 135 sessions, which were broken into five different strands—governance, policy, leadership, operations, and instruction. Some of the “featured” topics included social-emotional learning, innovation in K-12, in-house teacher prep, the role of charter authorizers, and how ESSA will impact charter schools, to name a few.
Importantly, Tony Simmons, Executive Director for Minnesota’s High School for Recording Arts, and a board member at Education Evolving, was a co-presenter for a session on “Mission-Driven Metrics for Reengaging Opportunity Youth.”
Chartering and the Trump Administration: A Delicate Relationship Between the Two
One unavoidable topic of the conference was the Trump administration and charter schools. In the opening, all-group session, NAPCS President and CEO, Nina Rees, encouraged attendees to embrace the Trump administration’s support of charter schools. She noted that even though President Bush and President Obama had some controversial education policies (NCLB and Race to the Top), charter advocates still got behind their support of charter schools.
While Rees did not explicitly speak to the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts at the conference, NAPCS released a statement in May on the topic. In the statement, they indicated their support for his expansion of charter schools, but also expressed concern with his proposed cuts: “The proposed $54 billion in overall cuts to nondefense discretionary spending—over $9 billion coming from the Department of Education alone—would have long-lasting, far-reaching negative consequences for children, families, communities, and our country as a whole.”
Secretary DeVos Reinforces Choice and Calls for More Innovation
USDE Education Secretary Betsy DeVos spoke at the conference, despite the controversies surrounding her stances on school choice and school vouchers. In an email to the conference attendees, NAPCS explained that since the launch of the conference in 2000, “Secretaries of Education from both the Bush and Obama Administration have addressed our attendees,” and so in the spirit of “bipartisan tradition” Secretary DeVos would give an address.
In her speech, Secretary DeVos reinforced the Trump Administration’s support for school choice and allowing families to choose the school that best fits the needs of their child, “I suggest we focus less on what word comes before ‘school’ – whether it be traditional, charter, virtual, magnet, home, parochial, private or any approach yet to be developed – and focus instead on the individuals they are intended to serve.”
Additionally, Secretary DeVos’ called for conference attendees to “re-engage and recommit to the entrepreneurial spirit” of the original charter school leaders. She cautioned against “playing it safe” and indicated that somewhere over the past twenty-five years, the innovation and creativity that charters were originally intended to have has been lost. She asserted that, “Embracing more change, more choices and more innovation will improve education opportunities and outcomes for all students.”
Success Academies Receives Broad Prize
The prestigious Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools, which recognizes charter management organizations (CMO) that have “demonstrated the best outcomes, particularly for low-income students and students of color” was awarded at the conference to New York’s Success Academy. The high-performing, high-profile, and sometimes controversial CMO will receive $250,000 that must be used for college-readiness efforts.
While accepting the award, Success Academy founder and CEO, Eva Moskowitz, said, “I wanted to show what was possible for children if we were only willing to rethink, reinvent, and reimagine schooling.” She went on to announce that, later this week, Success will launch a digital platform where they can share their curriculum, training, school design, and other materials with charter schools around the country.
Washington — President Donald Trump used his first speech to a joint session of Congress… to frame education as “the civil rights issue of our time”—a line used by other leaders in both parties, including former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
And he called on Congress to go big on his favorite K-12 policy, school choice, without laying out specifics. He asked lawmakers to “pass an education bill that funds school choice for disadvantaged youth, including millions of African-American and Latino children. These families should be free to choose the public, private, charter, magnet, religious, or home school that is right for them.”
The push for school choice is no surprise—it’s the education issue Trump talked about most often on the campaign trail. And Trump picked an education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who spent decades advocating for expanding vouchers and charter schools.
To underscore the power of choice, Trump pointed to Denisha Merriweather, one of a handful of honored guests, sitting with Melania Trump, the first lady…
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Hundreds of educators, parents, civil rights activists, and U.S. senators assembled across from the U.S. Capitol on Monday evening to urge “just one more” senator to stand up and cast the deciding ‘no’ vote on Betsy DeVos as U.S. Education Secretary. Coming on the eve of the confirmation vote, the rally was the final exclamation point of a nationwide mobilization against a nominee whom educators consider dangerously unqualified to lead our public schools.
With all 48 Democrats already united against her, DeVos was suddenly hanging by a thread. Only one more GOP vote was needed.
Already deluged with emails and phone calls, senate offices from both parties were hit again over the weekend.
“Your calls and outreach have been amazing,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut told the rally on Monday evening. “You’ve really freaked out a lot of my GOP colleagues.”
In the end, however, that last ‘no’ vote proved elusive. DeVos was confirmed on Tuesday when Vice President Mike Pence had to cast a vote to break the 50-50 deadlock – the first time in the nation’s history this action was necessary to approve a cabinet nominee.
Despite the disappointing outcome, the mobilization against DeVos shook Capitol Hill and the White House.
“In my years as a public education advocate, I have never witnessed this level of public outcry,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “The nomination has touched a raw nerve not only with public education advocates like me but with the general public as well.”
The level of engagement – which ran deep and across party lines – was nothing short of astounding.
“Our students, my passion, our schools are not for sale,” Maryland educator Henoch Hailu told the anti-DeVos rally on February 6.
Educators, parents and allies sent more than 1 million letters via NEA’s activism site and made 80,000 phone calls in 4 weeks, urging senators to vote no. Opposition swelled nationally, and senators reported that the three days ending last week resulted in the most calls into the Capitol switchboard in history.
“Americans across the nation drove a bipartisan repudiation of the Trump-DeVos agenda for students and public education,” remarked Eskelsen García after the vote on Tuesday. “This marks only the beginning of the resistance.”
From Shoo-In to Deadlock
Nominees for cabinet positions, let alone for Education Secretary, rarely generate this intense level of opposition. Then again, no recent nominee seemed so utterly unfit for the post as Betsy DeVos.
DeVos is the first secretary of education with zero experience with public schools. None of her children attended public school. She’s never worked in a public school. She’s never been a teacher or a school administrator, nor served on any public board of education.
While the spiraling concerns over DeVos weren’t enough to deliver the 51st vote necessary to ultimately defeat the nomination, there’s little doubt that DeVos emerges from the confirmation battle a weakened figure.
More disqualifying, however, is her long, well-established record of trying to dismantle the public education system she is now charged with overseeing. The billionaire DeVos family, a top donor to the Michigan Republican Party, has led the charge for privatization by bankrolling multiple efforts to bring voucher schemes and unregulated charter schools to their state.
It was DeVos’ long record of anti-public education activism that triggered swift and immediate opposition as soon as then President-elect Donald Trump announced her nomination on Nov. 23. Still, few observers in Washington saw any major potholes on her road to confirmation. But educators and parents’ full-court press was only just getting started.
“The fact that the nominee for secretary of education did not know how the federal government protects special education students is infuriating,” Henoch Hailu, an educator from Maryland, told the protestors on Monday.
DeVos also refused to rule out cutting public school funding to pay for school voucher programs and she shocked many when she hedged on upholding the 2011 Title IX guidance as it relates to sexual assault on campus. Her bizarre response to a question about gun violence that firearms should be allowed in schools to protect students against grizzly bears became a popular Internet meme.
Activists were emboldened by DeVos’ disastrous performance and a steady drip of unfavorable press soon followed. The news got even worse for the nominee when it was revealed that she had plagiarized some of her written responses to her Senate questionnaire. In addition, DeVos continued to be hounded by questions about unresolved conflict-of-interest issues over her financial holdings. Two former ethics counsels to Presidents Obama and George W. Bush wrote in “The Hill”: “Seldom have we seen a worse cabinet-level ethics mess than that presented by Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s choice for education secretary.”
The Trump-DeVos Agenda: Still Unacceptable
While the spiraling concerns over DeVos weren’t enough to deliver the 51st vote necessary to ultimately defeat the nomination, there’s little doubt that DeVos emerges from the confirmation battle in many respects a hobbled and weakened figure. As Politico reported last week:
“Historically, education secretaries have seized the secretary’s bully pulpit and traveled around the nation to promote their ideas. But that may be more challenging for DeVos…. Her poor performance during her confirmation hearing reinforced concerns about her lack of conventional classroom experience and commitment to public schools.”
Still, anyone who has followed DeVos over the years will tell you that she is resourceful and relentless. She was undeterred in 2000 when 69 percent of Michigan voters rejected a change to the constitution that would have opened the door to vouchers. DeVos turned instead to funding voucher programs in other states and lifting the cap on charter schools – without any safeguards for accountability or transparency. As Education Secretary, DeVos will be charged with amassing support for President Trump’s $20 million proposal to expand charter schools and vouchers.
But the confirmation battle exposed not only DeVos’ lack of qualifications and preparedness, but also her extreme ideology. As Secretary of Education, DeVos will for the first time face a new, previously unfamiliar constraint: accountability.
“America is speaking out. The level of energy is palpable,” said Eskelsen García. “We are going to watch what Betsy DeVos does. And we are going to hold her accountable for the actions and decisions she makes on behalf of the more than 50 million students in our nation’s public schools.”
Washington — President Donald Trump used his first speech to a joint session of Congress… to frame education as “the civil rights issue of our time”—a line used by other leaders in both parties, including
Hundreds of educators, parents, civil rights activists, and U.S. senators assembled across from the U.S. Capitol on Monday evening to urge “just one more” senator to stand up and cast the deciding ‘no’ vote on Betsy DeVos as U.S. Education Secretary. Coming on the eve of the confirmation vote, the rally was the final exclamation point of a nationwide mobilization against a nominee whom educators consider dangerously unqualified to lead our public schools.