Take the highway! For four years, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has worked to destroy democratic public schools and the teaching profession while touting her Education Freedom plan, vouchers.
But Americans should be asking what she really means by educational freedom after this past week. The freedom to determine what safe schooling means in your community doesn’t seem to be a part of the DeVos, Trumpian ideology. There’s no freedom when you’re told what you must do, or else.
As states and local school districts struggle to deal with a world catastrophe, made difficult by poor leadership from D.C., DeVos and her boss are saying schools must reopen. Neither gives suggestions as to how this should be done safely. Nor do they promise adequate funds for it to happen. It’s a reelection gamble for Trump, who sees the coronavirus as belonging to the Democrats.
Even Fox News host Neil Cavuto seemed astonished at DeVos’s cavalier disregard for the coronavirus. He said, In the communities that have seen spiking cases, wouldn’t it be reckless of a governor or even a mayor in those locales to go ahead and reopen schools as if none of that were going on?
DeVos walked it back a bit, saying Governors should consider hotspots. But make no mistake, if schools don’t reopen, DeVos is going to hand over public school tax dollars to parents to educate children any way they want. What options will they have? Lousy unsafe charters? Online programs that have a known failure rate?
And will Governors consider hotspots? Probably not if they’re Republican.
Like Florida’s Governor DeSantis who governs a hotspot. He said reopening schools is like reopening Walmart and Home Depot. This demonstrates such a disconnect about how schools work, that DeSantis was criticized for his comment. Still he’s damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
DeVos, who can watch the illness and devastation unfold in schools from a distance, tells parents what they want to hear. She’s still focused on breaking up schools and ending the teaching profession.
DeVos lavishes praise on New York City’s controversial Success Charter Academy, where it’s founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz earns $782,175. She harshly criticizes the Fairfax Public School teachers and their rollout of online learning last spring, teachers DeVos should represent and support.
There are arguments for schools to reopen. School districts and parents should work it out, being ever mindful that one choice is to not reopen, but to give children and teachers more time. It takes patience and community coordination to do this, and it was just made more difficult because of DeVos and her boss.
It’s easy to tout risk, as DeVos and the President have done, but when children get sick, or worse, or when their teachers or parents contract the virus, where will the two of them be then?
When the President and Mrs. Trump walked away from the school meeting the other day, a reporter yelled out to them, asking if their child would be returning to his school. They did not answer. Will his grandchildren be returning as well?
When DeVos implies it’s my way or the highway when it comes to something as serious as the coronavirus, you must wonder about the other freedoms she’s promising too.
In the case of Covid-19, take the highway. Sooner or later you’ll reach your destination. If you stop and listen to her, you and your children might not make it, literally.
That’s a good question. Will their children and grandchildren return to school? I doubt it. Members of the elite have the luxury of pursuing other less harmful options.
Thank you, Bobbi.
Please consider adding this to any discussion of Eva Moskowitz:
PROOF CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE RUN BY CHARLATANS:
“To mark the occasion hundreds of proud parents and family members, educators, and fellow Success Academy students gathered at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center to watch JUST 16 high school seniors collect their diplomas.”
“This graduating class STARTED OFF WITH 73 students when the network launched, according to the Wall Street Journal. Critics have said that Success pushes out students who are the toughest to serve, such as those with behavioral challenges — something the network adamantly denies.”
OK, so what happened to the rest?
https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2018/6/7/21105493/success-academy-graduates-16-students-at-its-inaugural-commencement
Yep! Thanks for sharing this, Lawrence. There’s so much controversy over her schools and her control of who’s able to attend.
No doubt about it, Trump and DeVos are going for broke. They would love nothing more than to turn this into a Reagan PATCO moment where they get to fire all of us in one swift stroke. Then, bring the schools back as charters the way it was done in New Orleans.
SOLUTION: Work with the governors, mayors, legislators, courts, and school communities across the country. Many of them, even Republicans, will resent being ordered around, as shown by Andrew Cuomo and Bill DeBlaso who are already openly defying the POTUS.
If necessary, go back to work in September. When COVID-19 cases spike they’ll be to blame and it will make their re-election less likely.
Risking the health of our school communities is difficult, but we cannot allow Donny and Betsy to position themselves to say they are ready for school and we’re not. Sometimes, you have to give the baby his bottle.
I never thought of it like that, Lawrence! My gosh! You’re right!
I believe DOE Secretary DeVois is a problem with her agenda of privatization of America’s public schools. But, I also think there is a problem with focusing on when to return to school, rather than focus on how to support all students during this National emergency.
I believe when school districts decide to “distant” locate instruction the school district has a moral responsibility to every enrolled student to reached each student by a phone line or inner every school day and provide teacher/community volunteer support on assigned work.
COVID-19 is attacking the community, not just the schools and the attack needs a united community response whether schools are open or not.
I absolutely agree, Jim. Schools are tied to the community. Where’s this focus? Thank you!
I am a rural public high school teacher, and I hear people of both parties approaching reopening with hesitancy, which gives me hope that reason will prevail. Online schooling is frustrating for the younger kids, and I know that first-hand, but I found that at the h.s. level my more diligent students completed their online work, and those who fell behind were those kids who consistently did the minimum — or less — only a few exceptions. I would like to see online schooling, with one-two open school days per week solely for students who fail to complete their online work, need internet access, or request additional assistance. This would also allow teachers to share what we are assigning, so not to overload kids. And allow us to create safe spaces, which will NOT be possible otherwise.
From my observation, students in my community have not followed any CDC guidelines in social situations this summer. Teachers were the only ones wearing masks at our outdoor graduation in July, and students were not social distancing. Regulating cell phone use and minor classroom rule violations are routine, but enforcing mask wearing takes policing to a whole new level. I’d love to get back into the classroom, but not as a police state.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Wendy. I agree that there are parents from both political parties who are concerned. I am troubled about the mask wearing in school. I think it will present difficulties for elementary students especially. That’s one problem. There are many more.
I’m for setting up small groups of children, even in neighborhoods where contact tracing might be easier. Just a thought.
Hear hear Wendy! ????????????
Arguing about Education policy with BDV is like arguing about fire protection policy with an arsonist. Besides, lost in discussion about all her viciousness towards public ed and teachers is the end game she deeply shares with VP and former IN Gov Pence and that is Dominionism. It drives everything she’s doing. And for her to cast the appropriate Covid-19 response in the context of freedom is both cynical and disgusting. She should be openly confronted on how her religious convictions inform ????% of her views and policy objectives. THAT would be freedom.
I don’t support Betsy DeVos threatening to withhold funding for schools that don’t open and opt for distance learning in stead…but this line from this article made me so angry…
“But make no mistake, if schools don’t reopen, DeVos is going to hand over public school tax dollars to parents to educate children any way they want. What options will they have? Lousy charters? Online programs that have a known failure rate?”
While there are some “lousy charters” just like there aresome “lousy public schools,” there are also many excellent charters who are doing a great job with kids. And that “known failure rate” of online programs is compared to regular in person schooling…we have no idea how the distance learning programs brick and mortar schools are cooking up during the summer will compare to what the charters have previously done, and have no reason to assume they will do better.
And when many schools went to distance learning this year who did they go to for advice about how to do it? Charter schools that had already been doing it! And yeah, those hastily planned models schools quickly moved to weren’t great, but that’s because they were formed without much time to set them up correctly (crisis schooling, not real distance learning, right?). But they wouldn’t have been better trying to “invent the wheel” from scratch, I’m certain of that.
It would make so much sense to let as many students as possible transfer to distance learning charters that have experience. But in our state, our state just passed a funding plan that would base all school funding on last year’s enrollment, therefor cutting off all chances for charters to expand to meet demand. And the demand is high. Parents, understandably, were flocking to distance learning charters and independent learning charters. Even before this charters were putting some families on a waiting list (cause they had some limits on how much they can expand). But now new families who had already been accepted to these charters were sent letters saying…sorry, we can’t take you because the funding we expected to be there was pulled.
Meanwhile in LA teachers unions actually made a moratorium on charters one of their demands they are threatening to strike over. I support them striking due to covid safety issues and paid sick leave, but demanding a moratorium on charters is just a slap to the face to their fellow educators in charter schools (oh, and we ALREADY had a moratorium on new non-classroom charters schools until 2022…LOVELY. That’s working out SO WELL, isn’t it).
Not as bad as Texas educational organizations threatening to deny funding to their own schools if they choose to do distance learning, but it’s still a poor choice.
PROOF CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE RUN BY CHARLATANS:
“To mark the occasion hundreds of proud parents and family members, educators, and fellow Success Academy students gathered at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center to watch JUST 16 high school seniors collect their diplomas.”
“This graduating class STARTED OFF WITH 73 students when the network launched, according to the Wall Street Journal. Critics have said that Success pushes out students who are the toughest to serve, such as those with behavioral challenges — something the network adamantly denies.”
OK, so what happened to the rest?
https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2018/6/7/21105493/success-academy-graduates-16-students-at-its-inaugural-commencement
Myth #1: Charter schools have this incredible and truly unbelievable success rate at graduating students on time.
It’s easy when a school can cherry pick their students or counsel them out. The reality is that there are few English Language Learners (ELL’s) in charter schools and most charter schools will not accept or will counsel out IEP students (Individualized Education Program) who have special requirements. Students in this category include children with learning disabilities, ADHD, emotional or cognitive disorders, autism, speech or language impairment or developmental delay. These are students that public schools not only accept but provide individualized programs for under the law and with as much of a budget that a school or district can muster.
Charter schools don’t want these students because states mandate that for a charter school to keep their charter, the school is required to show a certain level of performance and this is reflected in test scores. It a student is going to test poorly, the charter school does not want that student. It is also expensive to provide additional support for IEP and ELL students and most charter schools are looking at their bottom line in terms of profitability.
Also, the attrition rate for African American males is 60% in some schools.
https://seattleducation.com/race-to-the-top/charter-schools/
Wow! Switch all students to online charters. What? Do you work for DeVos?
There might be a few decent charters out there, but please read Lawrence D’Amico’s comment above. I’ve seen no legitimate report saying charter schools are doing better during covid than real public schools. There’s a lot of privatization promotions.
Online charters…. well that’s all they do! Why wouldn’t they have a grasp on going virtual?
For the record, most parents don’t like online and neither do the students. And many teachers have transitioned to doing it well now.
Betsy DeVos would love to have everyone run to charter schools, but there has been no evidence that they are better than real public schools, and there’s a lot of corruption surrounding them too.
So thanks for your comment. I always appreciate a chance to defend real public education.
Also, if you have time, Gale, could you send me the links you’ve found that state that teachers have been running to charters for help. I want to be fair.
Great thread, Nancy. You never disappoint.