Outgoing Administration Admits Charters are not Public Schools

The latest executive order by troglodyte Trump tacitly admits that charter schools are *NOT* public schools. We all knew that, but it's nice when the vile privatizers tell on themselves. *

While it is good to see DeVos and Trump on the way out, there's little to hope for with Biden. It's already been announced that right-wing, neoliberal hatchetman Bruce Reed will be Biden's Deputy Chief of Staff, and the choice of seemingly apolitical Miguel Cardona is probably for a reason.

At the end of the day Biden was part of the second worst administration for education. The damage doltish Arne Duncan did prior to Trump is what opened the door for DeVos in the first place.

DeVos = Duncan + Dominionism *

Outgoing Administration Admits Charters are not Public Schools

Please consider reading, signing, and sharing SaveIDEA.org today!

Betsy DeVos is trying to use the current crises to impose IDEA waivers, robbing students with disabilities of their right to a free and appropriate public education (FAPE). Students with disabilities, their families, educators, special education (SPED) advocates, and SPED organizations are encouraged to read and sign.

The organizers are also looking for testimonials and anecdotes from parents.

Please consider reading, signing, and sharing SaveIDEA.org today
http://saveidea.org

Also featured here on Professor Diane Ravitch’s blog: Save IDEA! Sign This Petition to Betsy DeVos!

Please consider reading, signing, and sharing SaveIDEA.org today!

Florina Rodov: The Truth About Charter Schools

“[W]hen teachers aren’t unionized, they’re exploited — and when teachers suffer, so do kids.” — Florina Rodov

This amazing piece by Florina Rodov on Shondaland is a must read. Taking place at one of the seedy charter corporations here in Los Angeles, the story Rodov tells is all too familiar to all of us that are anti-privatization activists. Much of the mistreatment of faculty and students mirrors the accounts in Professor Horn's Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys Through "No Excuses" Teaching. Hat tip to Leonie Haimson, whose Tweet regarding this essay caught my eye.

An excerpt, but please go and read the whole work:

"But I soon realized there was a gulf between charter school hype and reality. Every day brought shocking and disturbing revelations: high attrition rates of students and teachers, dangerous working conditions, widespread suspensions, harassment of teachers, violations against students with disabilities, nepotism, and fraud. By the end of the school year, I vowed never to step foot in a charter school again, and to fight for the protection of public schools like never before."

Florina Rodov: The Truth About Charter Schools

Graphic Essay: Betsy DeVos' 'School Choice' Movement Isn't Social Justice. It's a Return to Segregation.

Charters and vouchers have always been intended to break public schools, and wrest education away from the public commons. "School choice," a phrase coined by segregationists, has always been about maintaining and exacerbating segregation by race and class.

Graphic Essay: Betsy DeVos' 'School Choice' Movement Isn't Social Justice. It's a Return to Segregation. by Adam Bessie and Erik Thurman is a powerful piece that makes complex concepts easy to understand. It's a excellent thing to share with non-academics regarding the scourge of school privatization via charters-vouchers. I've included a quote and a teaser from the piece below.

http://socialjusticequotations.tumblr.com/post/160327844183/the-school-choice-system-is-jim-crow-education

https://charterschoolfacts.tumblr.com/post/160327683353/graphic-essay-betsy-devos-school-choice

Graphic Essay: Betsy DeVos' 'School Choice' Movement Isn't Social Justice. It's a Return to Segregation.

Schools Matter: The Monica Garcia - Betsy DeVos connection

First published on Schools Matter on December 13, 2016

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“Monica Garcia believes in… choice… She expanded charter schools” — Michael R. Bloomberg and A. Jerrold Perenchio’s Coalition for School Reform

Extremist Betsy DeVos was a long time favorite of neoliberal corporate education reform oriented Liberals and reactionary organizations like Democrats for Education Reform, so it's surprising that there's a little bit of consternation coming from some Democrats over Trump's ED pick. On the other hand, right-wing extremists like Campbell Brown seemingly can't contain their joy over the arch-reactionary appointment. Ultimately DeVos's school privatization policies won't differ substantively from those of the doltish Arne Duncan or John King. She'll just get to our rulers' end goal of eliminating public education quicker than the Bush and Obama Administrations were able to.

Los Angeles has had its own Betsy DeVos for many years in the form of anti-public school politician Monica Garcia. Garcia is running for a third term, and her long record of expanding revenue streams and market share for the lucrative charter school industry is legendary. Here are some of DeVos and Garcia's connections and shared values:

• Betsy DeVos financially supports, and was on the board of publisher (The 74) of the dubious "LA School Report", a high-profile blog that has provided non-stop favorable publicity and propaganda for Moníca García since its inception.

• DeVos has made sizable contributions to organizations that in turn made campaign contributions to SuperPAC Independent Expenditures supporting García's elections. Follow the money to organization like the now defunct Coalition for School Reform, and Great Public Schools Los Angeles, and also the current CCSA run Parent Teacher Alliance dark money SuperPAC.

• DeVos funds the organizations espousing racist "school choice" policies from which García derives many of her policy positions and talking points.

• DeVos and García openly support religious, and religious affiliated organizations running charter chains. DeVos with the various Christian Identity and white supremacist organizations she's associated with, and García, whose long time relationship with The Pacifica Institute and the shadowy Gülen network are well documented.

Schools Matter: The Monica Garcia - Betsy DeVos connection

Schools Matter: I can't think of anyone as profoundly ignorant, or as uniquely unqualified to be appointed Secretary of Education as Betsy…

First published on Schools Matter on February 07, 2017

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I can't think of anyone as profoundly ignorant, or as uniquely unqualified to be appointed Secretary of Education as Betsy…

…oh, wait, never-mind.

Let's not forget that neoliberal school privatization is a bipartisan project. Both parties fail education.

A natural progression of neoliberalism

• Rod Paige
• Margaret Spellings
• Arne Duncan
• John King
• Betsy DeVos

Not opposing the neoliberal corporate education reform agenda when Democrats were in charge is what led to the DeVos disaster. Not unlike how the Hillary Rodham Clinton camp's "Elevating Pied Piper Candidates" led to the Trump fiasco.

Schools Matter: I can't think of anyone as profoundly ignorant, or as uniquely unqualified to be appointed Secretary of Education as Betsy…

Schools Matter: DeVos: a product of bipartisan embrace of failed, racist “school choice” policies

First published on Schools Matter on December 20, 2016

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“I stand behind the charter school… movement, because parents do deserve greater choice” — Hillary Rodham Clinton

With both mainstream presidential candidates publicly stating they believed in the white supremacist notion of school choice, it wasn’t hard to see the Trump nomination of someone as extreme as Betsy DeVos as being possible. How these abject, failed policies play out in reality is instructive.

Vice on Detroit: School choice gutted Detroit’s public schools. The rest of the country is next.

Schools Matter: DeVos: a product of bipartisan embrace of failed, racist “school choice” policies