http://curiousmindmagazine.com/goodbye-subjects-finland-taking-revolution-education-step/

Finland Will Become The First Country In The World To Get Rid Of All School Subjects

Dec 27, 2016

In an era of technology and easily accessible information, our schools still expect from us to know everything from the books, without considering whether this is going to be what we will actually need in our professional development. How many times have you wondered if you were going to need a subjects you were made to learn because the curriculum said so? Finland has decided to change this in their educational system and introduce something which is suitable for the 21^st century.

By 2020, instead of classes in physics, math, literature, history or geography, Finland is going to introduce a different approach to life through education. Welcome to the phenomenon based learning!

As Phenomenal Education states on their website, “In Phenomenon Based Learning (PhenoBL) and teaching, holistic real-world phenomena provide the starting point for learning. The phenomena are studied as complete entities, in their real context, and the information and skills related to them are studied by crossing the boundaries between subjects.”

This means that instead of learning physics (or any other subject) for the sake of learning it, the students will be given the opportunity to choose from phenomena from their real surroundings and the world, such as Media and Technology, or the European Union. 

These phenomena will be studied through an interdisciplinary approach, which means subjects will be included, but only those (and only parts of them) that contribute to excelling in the topic.

For example, a student who wants to study a vocational course can take “cafeteria services” and the phenomenon will be studied through elements of maths, languages, writing and communication skills. Another example is the European Union, which would include economics, languages, geography and the history of the countries involved. 

Now take your profession as an example and think of all the information you need to know connected to it – you are now thinking the PhenoBL way!

This kind of learning will include both face-to-face and online sessions, with a strong emphasis on the beneficial use of technology and the Internet through the process of eLearning. You can read more about it here.

In the learning process, the students will be able to collaborate with their peers and teachers through sharing information and collectively exploring and implementing new information as a building tool.

 The teaching style is going to change too!

Instead of the traditional style of teacher-centered learning, with students sitting behind their desks and recording every instruction given by the teacher, the approach is going to change to a holistic level. This means that every phenomenon will be approached in the most suitable and natural way possible.

However, as Phenomenal Learning states, “The starting point of phenomenal-based teaching is constructivism, in which learners are seen as active knowledge builders and information is seen as being constructed as a result of problem-solving, constructed out of ‘little pieces’ into a whole that suits the situation in which it is used at the time.”

This educational system tends to include leaning in a collaborative setting (e.g. teamwork), where they would like to see information being formed in a social context, instead of it being seen only as an internal element of an individual.

This approach is going to support inquiry-based learning, problem-solution and project and portfolio learning. The last step is going to be practical implementation, being seen as the outcome of the whole process.

This reform is going to require a lot of cooperation between teachers of different subjects and this is why the teachers are already undergoing an intense training.

In fact, 70% of the teachers in Helsinki are already involved in the preparatory work in line with the new system. 

Co-teaching is at the base of the curriculum creation, with input from more than one subject specialist and teachers who embrace this new teaching style will receive a small increase in their salary as a sign of recognition.

From a teaching perspective, this style is very rewarding and worthwhile for the teachers too. Some teachers, who have already implemented this style in their work, say that they cannot go back to the old style.

This is indeed not surprising at all, as the interaction in this teaching style is something every teacher has always dreamed of.

Currently, schools are obliged to introduce a period of phenomenal-based learning at least once a year. The plan is to completely implement the PhenoBL approach by 2020. 

A similar approach called the Playful Learning Centre is being used in the pre-school sector and it is going to serve as a starting point for the phenomenal-based learning.

.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/12/12/this-is-how-to-help-young-children-learn-to-love-school/?utm_term=.84a519652ec9

The big problem with early childhood education

(iStock)

Research in child development over decades as well as modern neuroscience clearly show that young children learn best when they are active. That means they get to put their hands on things, interact with other kids and adults, move a lot, create, play. But in the current school reform era, that’s not what is happening in too many classrooms. The emphasis is on “rigorous instruction,” and young children are forced to sit at their desks doing academic work — sometimes with little or no recess and/or sufficient physical education.

Here is an excerpt of a speech about this issue by Nancy Carlsson-Paige, early childhood education expert and a founding member of a nonprofit called Defending the Early Years, which commissions research about early childhood education and advocates for sane policies for young children. She is professor emerita of education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Ma., where she taught teachers for more than 30 years and was a founder of the university’s Center for Peaceable Schools.

Carlsson-Paige is author of “Taking Back Childhood.” The mother of two artist sons, Matt Damon and Kyle Damon, she is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the Legacy Award from the Robert F. Kennedy Children’s Action Corps for work over several decades on behalf of children and families, and the Deborah Meier award by the nonprofit National Center for Fair and Open Testing. She recently was a keynote speaker at a recent symposium of early childhood educators from the five Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland) and the United States.

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[The decline of play in preschoolers — and the rise in sensory issues] 

This is part of her speech, which I am publishing because it speaks to the continued emphasis on academics — and lack of sufficient play — for our youngest students:

Hello everyone.

It’s really inspiring to learn about early childhood education in the Nordic countries where play is so valued and children don’t begin formal instruction until the age of 7.  We have a very different situation here in the United States, where the pressure to teach academic skills to young children has been increasing over recent years.

For the last 15 years or so, our education system has been dominated by standards and tests, by the gathering of endless amounts of data collected to prove that teachers are doing their job and kids are learning.  But these hyper requirements have oppressed teachers and drained the creativity and joy from learning for students.  Unfortunately, this misguided approach to education has now reached down to our youngest children.

In kindergartens and pre-K classrooms around the country we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in play.  There are fewer activity centers in classrooms and much less child choice, as well as less arts and music.  At the same time, teacher directed instruction has greatly increased, along with more scripted curriculum and paper and pencil tasks.

This unfortunate change in early childhood education can be described as a shift away from child-centered classrooms to skills-centered ones.

Given that we have decades of research and child development theory to support whole child early education, the shift from child-centered to skills–centered education often seems inexplicable and bizarre.  But early childhood educators have not been at the policy-making tables to be able to advocate for developmentally appropriate, play-based learning for young kids.

In addition, we have a longstanding problem in our country that does not seem to plague the Nordic countries.  Here in the U.S., there is an enduring misconception about the nature of play.  Play is typically not seen as valuable or essential to learning.  It’s more commonly viewed as an activity separate from learning rather than as one in which students learn.

Children all over the world play.  They all know how to play, and no one has to teach them how.  Any time we see a human activity that is wired into the brain and accomplished by all children worldwide, we know it is critical to human development.

So much is learned through play in the early years that play has been called the engine of development.  Children learn concepts through play; they learn to cope and make sense of life experiences; and, they develop critical human capacities such as problem solving, imagination, self regulation and original thinking.

When we watch children building in blocks for example, we can see that they are naturally working on many math and science concepts (classification, seriation, 1:1 correspondance, causality, symmetry, etc.)  Teachers encourage this kind of play-based learning and build onto it with new concepts and skills that relate to what children are doing. If kids build a tall tower, the teacher might suggest they measure it with unifix cubes or paper tubes.  Enthusiasm grows as kids find out how tall their building is. They count, measure, compare. Based on a teacher’s judgement, they might draw or write what they find out.  But the new skills children are learning are meaningful.  They are connected to them and an experience that came from them.  The new skills make sense and enrich the activity.

In the U.S. today, skills are often separated from children’s play and active experiences.  Many teachers, under pressure to meet mandates, teach isolated skills and facts directly to groups of children. This makes the skill or fact become an end in itself rather than an integral part of a more holistic and meaningful experience.  And it takes the joy, excitement and empowerment out of learning.

When I think about this, I remember a letter I read years ago that was burned into my memory forever.  It was from a school principal, written to his teachers. The principal was a survivor of a concentration camp. In the letter, he said he had seen educated people — nurses and engineers — build gas chambers and kill innocent children.  And so this principal said he was suspicious of education.  He said:  “Reading and writing and math are important only if they serve to make our children more human.”

The principal understood that you can be very smart and have lots of knowledge and you can use it to destructive ends.  He understood that  it is dangerous to use knowledge outside of a context of meaning, mind and heart, and morality.

I think when we have the kind of education common in the U.S. today — where we separate skills children are learning from their experiences and what they care about — we begin the process of  dehumanizing education.  We teach children that knowing facts and skills, letters and numbers, is enough.  That how we use these tools is not what matters in education.

Two summers ago I spent a week with another family I’m close to.  At the end of the week, my friend Lynne had to leave to visit her mom who was ailing.  Lynne explained to Quentin, her 5-year-old grandson who adores her, that she had to leave a little early to go see her mom.  When Lynne drove out of the driveway, Quentin cried loud and hard, an anguishing cry. I tried to comfort him, and for a while he was inconsolable.  But after a while, Quentin’s cries grew quieter.  I said, “Quentin, I have an idea.  Why don’t I get some paper and markers and you can make a drawing for Nana.  Then we can go to the post office and send it to her.  She will be so happy to get a drawing from you in the mail.”

Quentin shook his head yes, this seemed like a good idea. I got the drawing things and set him up at a table.  When I came back a while later to see what Quentin had drawn, I was most amazed.  On the paper he had written letters:

 I M U N O Nu

Y D U H to  L

I R L L U

(Provided by Nancy Carlsson-Paige)

He read it to me. You might be familiar with early invented spelling; this is a great example.  Quentin had written:  “I miss you Nana.  Why did you have to leave?  I really love you.”

Quentin’s mom, a school principal in New York City was in the room, and she said in amazement, “Quentin has never written before this.”  Then Quentin turned to me and said, “I surprised myself!”

The need to write to his Nana, to convey his strong feelings, led Quentin to find the letters to express himself, his love for Nana and his sadness over her leaving.

Letters, words, and numbers are tools that we use for greater purposes of all kinds — to express ourselves, to solve problems, to investigate questions we want to pursue.  But they aren’t the end point.  They are a means to greater ends.  Ends that have meaning and are connected to us.   We should learn in school that we own these tools and can use them. And we should have educational experiences that help us develop the morality, heart, and civility to know how to use what we know for the greater good.

I hope we early childhood educators in the United States can strengthen our advocacy for children so they can have a more child-centered education.  And I hope that we can advocate for a schooling where reading, writing and math are connected to what children care about and experience. This is the way to help children learn optimally and learn to love school.  And it’s the path we have to be on if we want to educate not just children but future citizens who will contribute to making a better world.

(Correction: Fixing venue of speech)

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http://time.com/4474496/screens-schools-hoax/

Screens In Schools Are a $60 Billion Hoax

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras•Aug. 31, 2016

George Frey—Bloomberg/Getty Images Second graders work on iPads as part of their classroom work in a Utah elementary school on Monday, May 20, 2013.

Dr. Kardaras is the author of the new book Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Hijacking Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance. 

It's a gold rush, not a flood of educational concern

As the dog days of summer wane, most parents are preparing to send their kids back to school. In years past, this has meant buying notebooks and pencils, perhaps even a new backpack. But over the past decade or so, the back-to-school checklist has for many also included an array of screen devices that many parents dutifully stuff into their children’s bag.

The screen revolution has seen pedagogy undergo a seismic shift as technology now dominates the educational landscape. In almost every classroom in America today, you will find some type of screen—smartboards, Chromebooks, tablets, smartphones. From inner-city schools to those in rural and remote towns, we have accepted tech in the classroom as a necessary and beneficial evolution in education.

This is a lie.

Tech in the classroom not only leads to worse educational outcomes for kids, which I will explain shortly, it can also clinically hurt them. I’ve worked with over a thousand teens in the past 15 years and have observed that students who have been raised on a high-tech diet not only appear to struggle more with attention and focus, but also seem to suffer from an adolescent malaise that appears to be a direct byproduct of their digital immersion. Indeed, over two hundred peer-reviewed studies point to screen time correlating to increased ADHD, screen addiction, increased aggression, depression, anxiety and even psychosis.

But if that’s true, why would we have allowed these “educational” Trojan horses to slip into our schools? Follow the money.

Education technology is estimated to become a $60 billion industry by 2018. With the advent of the Common Core in 2010, which nationalized curriculum and textbooks standards, the multi-billion-dollar textbook industry became very attractive for educational gunslingers looking to capitalize on the new Wild West of education technology. A tablet with educational software no longer needed state-by-state curricular customization. It could now be sold to the entire country.

This new Gold Rush attracted people like Rupert Murdoch, not otherwise known for his concern for American pedagogy, who would go on to invest over $1 billion into an ed-tech company called Amplify, with the stated mission of selling every student in America their proprietary tablet—for only $199—along with the software and annual licensing fees.

Amplify hired hundreds of videogame designers to build educational videogames—while they and other tech entrepreneurs attempted to sell the notion that American students no longer had the attention span for traditional education. Their solution: Educate them in a more stimulating and “engaging” manner.

But let’s look more closely at that claim. ADHD rates have indeed exploded by 50 percent over the past 10 years with the CDC indicating that rates continue to rise by five percent per year. Yet many researchers and neuroscientists believe that this ADHD epidemic is a direct result of children being hyper-stimulated. Using hyper-stimulating digital content to “engage” otherwise distracted students exacerbates the problem that it endeavors to solve. It creates a vicious and addictive ADHD cycle: The more a child is stimulated, the more that child needs to keep getting stimulated in order to hold their attention.

Murdoch’s Amplify wasn’t the only dubious ed-tech cash-grab. The city of Los Angeles had entered into a $1.3 billion contract in 2014 to buy iPads loaded with Pearson educational software for all of its 650,000 K through 12 students—until the FBI investigated its contract and found that now-former Superintendent John Deasy had a close relationship with Apple and Pearson executives. (Before the deal was killed in December 2014, the Pearson platform had incomplete and essentially worthless curriculum and such feeble security restrictions students that bypassed them in weeks.)

Despite the Amplify and LA debacles, others still seek to convince naïve school administrators that screens are the educational panacea. Yet as more American schools lay off teachers while setting aside scarce budget dollars for tech, many educators and parents alike have begun to ask: Do any of these hypnotic marvels of the digital age actually produce better educational outcomes for the kids who use them?

We could look to Finland, whose school system routinely ranks toward the top globally and has chosen to skip the tech and standardized testing. Instead, Finnish students are given as many as four outdoor free-play breaks per day, regardless of the weather—while here, a sedentary American child sitting in front of a glowing screen playing edu-games while over-scheduled and stressed by standardized testing is seen as the Holy Grail.

Dr. Kentaro Toyama, an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, once believed that technology in the classroom could solve the problems of modern urban education. No Luddite, he had received his Ph.D. in computer science from Yale and had moved to India in 2004 to help found a new research lab for Microsoft; while there, he became interested in how computers, mobile phones and other technologies could help educate India’s billion-plus population.

Rather than finding a digital educational cure, he came to understand what he calls technology’s “Law of Amplification”: technology could help education where it’s already doing well, but it does little for mediocre educational systems. Worse, in dysfunctional schools, it “can cause outright harm.” He added: “Unfortunately, there is no technological fix…more technology only magnifies socioeconomic disparities, and the only way to avoid that is non-technological.”

The list of supporting education experts and researchers is long:

• The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a 2015 report that heavy users of computers in the classroom “do a lot worse in most learning outcomes” and that: “In the end, technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology cannot replace poor teaching.”

• An exhaustive meta-study conducted by Durham University in 2012 that systemically reviewed 48 studies examining technology’s impact on learning found that “technology-based interventions tend to produce just slightly lower levels of improvement when compared with other researched interventions and approaches.”

• The Alliance for Children, a consortium of some of the nation’s top educators and professors, in a 2000 report concluded: “School reform is a social challenge, not a technological problem…a high-tech agenda for children seems likely to erode our most precious long-term intellectual reserves—our children’s minds.”

• Patricia Greenfield, distinguished professor of psychology at UCLA, analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and points out that reading for pleasure among young people has decreased in recent decades, which is problematic because “studies show that reading develops imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking, as well as vocabulary…in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not.”

• Education psychologist and author of Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children’s Minds Jane Healy spent years doing research into computer use in schools and, while she expected to find that computers in the classroom would be beneficial, now feels that “time on the computer might interfere with development of everything from the young child’s motor skills to his or her ability to think logically and distinguish between reality and fantasy.”

• John Vallance, a Cambridge scholar and headmaster of Australia’s top K-through-12 school, Sydney Grammer, has said: “I think when people come to write the history of this period in education…this investment in classroom technology is going to be seen as a huge fraud.”

There has also been surprising research coming out of Canada: Students don’t even prefer e-learning over traditional education. In a 2011 study, researchers found that students actually preferred “ordinary, real-life lessons” to using technology. Those results surprised the researchers: “It is not the portrait that we expected, whereby students would embrace anything that happens on a more highly technological level. On the contrary—they really seem to like access to human interaction, a smart person at the front of the classroom.”

We are projecting our own infatuation with shiny technology, assuming our little digital natives would rather learn using gadgets—while what they crave and need is human contact with flesh-and-blood educators.

Schools need to heed this research in order to truly understand how to best nurture real intrinsic learning and not fall for the Siren song of the tech companies—and all of their hypnotic screens.

Tap to read full story

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

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http://stopcommoncoreinmichigan.com/2016/11/stop-cc-mi-respectfully-request-president-elect-trump-drain-swamp-pull-plug-betsy-devos/

Stop CC in MI respectfully request President-elect Trump to “drain the swamp” and pull the plug on Betsy DeVos

Karen Braun

We, the leadership team at Stop Common Core in Michigan, respectfully ask President-elect Donald Trump to immediately remove Betsy DeVos’s name from consideration as Secretary of the Department of Education.  We do not make this request lightly but with considerable knowledge regarding her negative influence in Michigan as a proponent of Common Core.

Michigan turned red for Trump for the first time since the 1980’s.  A large number of voters in Michigan were attracted to the Trump campaign because of his emphatic message against Common Core.  Michigan voters know that most Republicans in our state say they are against Common Core but do nothing to stop it.  We believed Trump would be a different kind of Republican and “drain the swamp” in education.  We believed that until the nomination of Betsy DeVos.  DeVos is part of  “the swamp” in Michigan.  She represents both a special interest AND as an influential Republican fought EVERY effort to stop Common Core in Michigan with her money and political influence.  

We respectfully submit that Betsy DeVos’s recent claim that she is against Common Core is not an accurate representation of her actions regarding  Common Core or the competency-based centralized education system the standards help build from prenatal to career.  We have done our “homework” as she encouraged; we support our claim with the following reasons:

1.  Betsy DeVos funds and serves on the board of the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP).
DeVos founded GLEP in 2001 and served as chair until 2008; she currently serves as a board member.  GLEP is a special-interest education political action committee.  One of the stated priorities of GLEP is “implementing” and “maintaining” Common Core “high standards” reform.  The GLEP document “The Conservative Case for Common Core” clearly articulates their support of Common Core.  No retraction has been issued.  Only after President-elect Trump nominated DeVos for Secretary did she attempt to distance herself from the pro-Common Core position of organizations such as GLEP.   She wrote on her very new web page Q & A,

 “Have organizations that I have been a part of supported Common Core? Of course. But that’s not my position,”

DeVos cannot distance herself from GLEP and their position that easily.  As a founder and major donor, DeVos’s mission IS GLEP’s mission.   Now that the standards are implemented in Michigan, GLEP’s mission is to maintain the so called “high standards” and build the assessment and accountability framework around them.

2.  Betsy DeVos and GLEP are lobbyists for Common Core. 
DeVos is a business woman who advocates for education reform in Michigan.   DeVos and GLEP lobbied the Michigan legislature to implement and maintain Common Core and related reforms.   Former MI State Representative, now State School Board member-elect,  Tom McMillin recently spoke to our team about DeVos and her claim that she is against Common Core.  McMillin, a strong opponent of Common Core, recalled that in 2013 DeVos specifically told him she was for Common Core during the very contentious legislative debate to stop implementation.  With the help of DeVos and GLEP,  resolution (HR-11) was abruptly passed through the Senate on a voice vote.  The hasty vote allowed Common Core to continue.  GLEP publicly applauded the resolution and the continued implementation of Common Core.

3.  DeVos and GLEP seek to influence elections in order to continue implementation of a Common Core aligned centralized education system. 

DeVos appeared very depressed and unhappy at the 2016 Republican National Convention during Trump’s acceptance speech. (Photo credit: Tami Carlone)

It is not a secret that Betsy DeVos or GLEP seek to influence elections with endorsements and campaign assistance.  Like all investors, DeVos expects a return on her investment.  Candidates who receive a GLEP endorsement face intense pressure to continue the reforms she desires.  Those reforms include the continued implementation of Common Core or so called, “high standards,” accountability, and school choice.

DeVos did not initially get on board the Trump train. Trump’s anti-common core rhetoric did not match her own position and agenda.  She indicated she would work on down ballot races and to push school choice.   The DeVos definition of school choice is the freedom to choose which Common Core aligned charter school will test and track your child from cradle-to-career. Local and parent control do not exist in DeVos’s education reform model.  Data and government funding drive the decision.  In a nutshell, school choice is centralized control to meet the demands of the state and regional business not the dreams of the child.  If confirmed, DeVos will hire people who share the same vision of common core aligned centralized education system to help her run the Department of Education.   The exact opposite of his goal to “drain the swamp.”

4.  GLEP director Gary Naeyaert threatened legal action against Stop Common Core in Michigan.

Screen capture of email Naeyaert sent to Melanie Kurdys threatening legal action.

In 2014, we began talking about DeVos and GLEP and why their endorsements matter.   We were also tracking candidates who were “for” and “against” Common Core.  We began a roll call of the candidates and noted if they received the GLEP endorsement on our website.   We explained our reasons clearly.  We believed there was “a high correlation between those who accepted the GLEP endorsement and their future votes on legislation.”  On June 8, 2014 we received an email from Gary Naeyaert requesting that we refrain from referencing GLEP or their endorsements in any future communication.  We did not reply.  On June 9, we received a second email:

“Let me be as clear as possible. If you continue to make false statements about [our] organization, you will be hearing from our legal counsel.”  – Gary Naeyaert, Executive Director of GLEP.

These are the intimidating tactics of a bully who is determined to get his way and silence any opposition.  After the 2014 election, Naeyaert bragged on Twitter about the results and sent Karen Braun the following tweet,

@SpunkyBraun If tonight’s election results are a referendum on #CommonCore, looks like we’ll continue implementing them. #miprimary

— GLEP (@GLEP_MI) August 6, 2014

Naeyaert’s actions occurred under the leadership of Betsy DeVos.  Threatening ordinary grassroots moms that oppose DeVos or GLEP and bragging about continued implementation of Common Core is NOT the kind leadership needed if President-elect Trump is serious about fulfilling his campaign promise to get rid of Common Core or removing federal intrusion in education.

5. DeVos or GLEP  have NOT reached out to the Stop Common Core in Michigan team.
They do not owe us a phone call or a follow-up tweet.  But one would think that after fighting us for so long and threatening legal action that either DeVos or Naeyaert would have made some attempt to reach out and let us know they changed their position. They have not. The first time we heard about Betsy DeVos’s new position on Common Core was last week when she posted her statement after the nomination.  Now is not time to trust our children’s educational future to a candidate whose only evidence that she is against Common Core is a single statement on a recently created web page.

6.  DeVos and GLEP have NOT supported Michigan legislation SB 826 or HB 5444 to Repeal and Replace Common Core.
Legislation to repeal and replace Common Core and related assessments was introduced in the spring of 2016.  Neither DeVos nor GLEP have expressed support for the bills.  In fact, GLEP  partnered with pro-Common Core Governor Snyder and others in the Michigan Coalition for Higher Standards to OPPOSE the bills.  The bill quickly passed the Senate Education Committee but has not been voted on by the full Senate.  We believe that GLEP and the coalition’s opposition to SB 826 is a significant reason it has not passed.

7.  Betsy DeVos supports  “high standards” on a national level.
DeVos, like Huckabee and many others, knows that the term “Common Core” has become toxic.  In her statement, she now makes the claim she is against it while still supporting “high standards.”  A change in terminology does not mean a change in mission.  DeVos has never renounced national common “high standards” but understands that they are a necessary component of her goal to deconstruct local/parent control in education.  If Betsy DeVos is confirmed, it is appears that national common “higher standards” will continue unabated regardless of what they are called.

8.    Betsy DeVos’s nomination was praised by stalwart common core advocates Jeb Bush and Michigan Governor Snyder.
Jeb Bush, an unwavering supporter of Common Core, praised the nomination of Betsy DeVos.  That should not be a surprise to anyone.  DeVos serves on the board for Bush’s Foundation For Excellence in Education.   The nomination was also praised by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.  Bush and Snyder have been vocal in their support of Common Core and a “new vision” for “prenatal to life-long learning” seamless education pathway.   Few grassroots activists who are truly anti-Common Core have praised her nomination.  That is telling and speaks louder than any recent website statement about the true vision of Betsy DeVos.

9.   Betsy DeVos will continue the push toward a “new vision” in education.
In his praise of DeVos, Bush referred to her ability to take bold leadership in a “new education vision.”  We very much doubt that he is referring to Trump’s promise to get rid of Common Core which is the opposite of Bush’s plan.   When a pro-Common Core advocate talks about a “new vision” it usually means more control not less.  Common Core (or any common national higher standard) is a necessary component of a new education system.  This vision is  often referred to as school choice.

Betsy DeVos is one of its strongest advocates.   The goal of school choice is a competency-based education system federally-funded in partnership with private organizations and businesses.  Federal dollars and student data follow the child from prenatal to career.  When government funding and data follow the child so does government control over the child’s life.

10.  Betsy DeVos’s recent statement against Common Core is insufficient to counter the weight of evidence over many years during which she worked to see Common Core and related reforms implemented in Michigan.  We have no confidence that she will stop Common Core at the national level and every reason to believe she will continue to “fill the swamp.”

We respectfully ask President-elect Donald Trump to immediately remove Betsy DeVos from consideration as Secretary of the Department of Education.  After her immediate removal, we invite Betsy DeVos to join the grassroots efforts in Michigan to undo the damage common core and P-20 (prenatal to life-long learning) competency based education has brought to our state’s educational system under her very persuasive influence.

The Stop Common Core in Michigan Leadership Team

Melanie Kurdys

Deborah DeBacker

Tamara Carlone
Michelle Frederick

Category: Uncategorized

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https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2016/11/donald-trump-betsy-devos-secretary-of-education/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

What Will Betsy DeVos Bring to the Role of Secretary of Education?

November 23, 2016 By Shane Vander Hart  1 Comment

President-elect Donald Trump announced today that school choice advocate Betsy DeVos will be his Secretary of Education. DeVos will have to be confirmed by a Republican majority Senate.

“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” Trump said in a released statement. “Under her leadership we will reform the U.S. education system and break the bureaucracy that is holding our children back so that we can deliver world-class education and school choice to all families. I am pleased to nominate Betsy as Secretary of the Department of Education.”

“I am honored to accept this responsibility to work with the President-elect on his vision to make American education great again,” DeVos said. “The status quo in education is not acceptable. Together, we can work to make transformational change that ensures every student in America has the opportunity to fulfill his or her highest potential.”

DeVos is a native of Michigan and has spent the better part of two decades advocating for school choice there, as well as, nationally. She is the chairman of the American Federation for Children which is a national school choice advocacy group. She is also a member of the board for the Foundation of Excellence in Education and the Great Lakes Education Project both of which are supportive of Common Core, but also school choice.

DeVos has served as the National Republican Committeewoman for Michigan and was elected as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party four times. Her husband, entrepreneur and philanthropist Dick DeVos, ran an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign against former Governor Jennifer Granholm (D-Michigan).

DeVos chairs the Windquest Group and has also served on national and local charitable and civic boards, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, American Enterprise Institute, The Philanthropy Roundtable, Kids Hope USA, and Mars Hill Bible Church.

She is a graduate of Holland Christian High School in Holland, MI and received her bachelor’s degree from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI. DeVos and her husband Dick have four children and five grandchildren.

What about Common Core? 

Throughout the presidential campaign Donald Trump has said that he is against Common Core and that he would get rid of it. Those of us who oppose Common Core are concerned that she sits on the board of not one, but two organizations that avidly advocate for Common Core.

DeVos this afternoon asserts that she is against Common Core. She tweeted this:

Many of you are asking about Common Core. To clarify, I am not a supporter—period. Read my full stance, here: https://t.co/qB2nAXvX0B

— Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) November 23, 2016

Her statement was part of a Q&A, and I’m not certain when it was written.

Certainly. I am not a supporter—period.

I do support high standards, strong accountability, and local control. When Governors such as John Engler, Mike Huckabee, and Mike Pence were driving the conversation on voluntary high standards driven by local voices, it all made sense. 

Have organizations that I have been a part of supported Common Core? Of course. But that’s not my position. Sometimes it’s not just students who need to do their homework.

However, along the way, it got turned into a federalized boondoggle.

Above all, I believe every child, no matter their zip code or their parents’ jobs, deserves access to a quality education.

Up until this Q&A was put up she had made no public statement about Common Core, and this one is rather vague. So like former Governor Mike Huckabee she’s saying she supported the American Diploma Project. She’s saying she doesn’t mind voluntary standards provided they are not “turned into a federalized boondoggle.”

Does she disagree that Common Core is “higher standards” or does she just oppose them because of the federal influence due to Race to the Top? She wants accountability, but is that at the state level or the federal level?

Those opposed to Common Core are concerned by the company she has kept.

She helped fund an effort influence the Republican primaries in her home state of Michigan and provided financial support to an organization, Great Lakes Education Project, that was part of an effort to defeat Michigan’s Common Core repeal bill.

Former Michigan State Representative Tom McMillin told Caffeinated Thoughts, “she and GLEP were one of the main leaders defending Common Core when I was fighting it in the legislature. In 2013 I know she was strongly supportive of Common Core and high stakes testing.”

“Gates won again.” Dr. Sandra Stotsky, a staunch opponent of Common Core, told Caffeinated Thoughts.

“Parents and teachers have been seemingly double-crossed by the DeVos appointment.  One huge issue is to what extent DeVos lied on her website that she was against Common Core when parents in Michigan see her as someone who has acted against parents’ interests and has served the forces of Common Core well,” Stotsky added.

Some activists are concerned, but are taking a “wait and see” approach.

“Nominating a person who has such ties to the pro-Common Core movement (even though she now disclaims support) is worrisome, to say the least. Parent activists had suggested multiple highly qualified people who would have been devoted to shutting down fed ed and returning all control to the states and localities. Their suggestions were apparently ignored. They had reason to hope for better from the Trump administration. We’ll have to see how willing Mrs. DeVos is to help Mr. Trump keep his campaign commitments,” Jane Robbins, senior fellow at American Principles Project, told Caffeinated Thoughts.

Some activists are cautiously hopeful that she will represent a change in the U.S. Department of Education.

“She says she wants high standards, but indicates that she thinks they should be local, or at least ‘driven by local voices.’ Assuming that means she will brook no federal influence over state standards–and I’m not sure her statement is entirely clear on that–that’s good news,” Neal McClusky, director of Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, told Caffeinated Thoughts.

What DeVos will do to actually untangle federal involvement with standards and accountability is unclear. I hope along with McClusky that this means she will walk back federal involvement and influence over state standards. Perhaps some of my earlier questions will be fleshed out in the confirmation process.

It should be noted again that DeVos’ involvement with the organizations in question could be due to their school choice platform, not Common Core. While she has not been a vocal opponent of Common Core, she has not been a vocal advocate for it either.

A champion of school choice.

DeVos deserves credit for her support for a parent’s right to choose what education is best for their student and this is appears to be a priority in the Trump administration.

Her support of school choice has earned her accolades among many Republicans such as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

Betsy DeVos will be great Secretary of Education.her passion for every child having a good education is proven by years of work in Michigan

— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) November 23, 2016

.@BetsyDeVos has been a champion of education reform for decades and is a fantastic choice to lead the Department of Education.

— Gov. Bobby Jindal (@BobbyJindal) November 23, 2016

Texas Governor Greg Abbott also points to her selection as signaling Trump’s support for school choice.

Trump shows support for school choice by selecting Betsy DeVos for education secretary. #txlege #schoolchoice https://t.co/9BsacH1isT

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) November 23, 2016

One of Michigan’s Congressman applauded the nomination citing school choice. “Betsy DeVos has been at the forefront of the effort to ensure every child in America has access to a quality education no matter their zip code,” said Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI) who represents Michigan’s 2nd Congressional District. “Betsy will be a tremendous advocate, who parents can count on, to disrupt business as usual in Washington. For too long, the educational status quo has failed too many children. Betsy has the knowledge and skill set to improve education by cutting through the bureaucratic red tape, restoring local control, and empowering parents to have a greater say in their children’s education.”

Her own Representative, Congressman Justin Amash (R-MI) who represents Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District praised Trump’s choice.

“Congratulations to Betsy DeVos on her nomination as secretary of education. She is a friend, a resident of Michigan’s Third District, and a longtime community leader. I can think of few people as prepared to meet the challenges ahead,” Amash said in a released statement.

“Betsy is intelligent, creative, experienced, and passionate about reforming education. I look forward to working with her to empower parents and local communities, advance school choice and competition, protect the right of homeschooling, and stop federal mandates and harmful initiatives like Race to the Top and Common Core,” Amash added.

Caffeinated Thoughts has also been told that DeVos is incredibly popular in the Michigan Christian School community, and nationally as well for her support of those schools and advocacy for school choice.

McClusky, a school choice supporter, was uncertain how much can be done at the federal level.

“On the spectrum of education policy people, her support for choice puts her well on the correct side. But I have concerns, especially that President-elect Trump, or she herself, will see Ms. Devos as not just the education department head, but the national education boss,” McClusky said.

He’s concerned about strings that could be attached to federal money for school choice.

“Even though choice is great, it is not something people should want Washington providing. Nor—outside of the DC voucher program, military families, and maybe Native American reservations—is it something that the feds can constitutionally provide. My fear is that DeVos and Trump might not recognize the myriad problems with taking private school choice national. More concerning, the American Federation for Children, which DeVos chairs, has tended to favor more rules and regulations on choice than I would prefer. That could become a much bigger concern were rules and regs attached to national-level vouchers,”  McClusky added.

I also appreciate her support of homeschooling and she provides quite a contrast with current Secretary of Education John King. In an interview with the Philanthropy Roundtable she said, “Homeschooling represents another perfectly valid educational option. To the extent that homeschooling puts parents back in charge of their kids’ education, more power to them. . . . We think of the educational choice movement as involving many parts: vouchers and tax credits, certainly, but also virtual schools, magnet schools, homeschooling, and charter schools.”

King on the other hand said he was concerned about homeschooling kids were not “getting the range of options that are good for all kids,” “not getting kind of the rapid instructional experience they would get in school.” King also said, however,  he’s aware of homeschooling families “doing it incredibly well” and he knew of homeschooled students in college who had “very tremendous academic success.” He also acknowledged a parent’s choice, “Obviously, it’s up to families if they want to take a homeschool approach.”

She won’t push radical liberal agendas. 

DeVos is respected among the Christian school community in Michigan. I’m impressed with her involvement with KidsHope USA which is a Christian-based mentoring program based out of in Michigan doing great work in local schools throughout the nation.

Because of the praise I’ve seen from social conservatives I don’t see her pushing a radical LGBT agenda from the U.S. Department of Education.

National Right to Life released a statement earlier recognizing her support of the right-to-life cause. I suspect under her leadership the U.S. Department of Education will not push comprehensive sex education.

Keeping a focus on education instead of a social agenda will be a radical improvement from the outgoing administration.

She is not beholden to teachers’ unions.

Teachers unions don’t love her so, in my mind, that is a positive.

“Every day, educators use their voice to advocate for every student to reach his or her full potential. We believe that the chance for the success of a child should not depend on winning a charter lottery, being accepted by a private school, or living in the right ZIP code. We have, and will continue, to fight for all students to have a great public school in their community and the opportunity to succeed no matter their backgrounds or circumstances,”  NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said in a released statement.

“Betsy DeVos has consistently worked against these values, and her efforts over the years have done more to undermine public education than support students. She has lobbied for failed schemes, like vouchers — which take away funding and local control from our public schools — to fund private schools at taxpayers’ expense. These schemes do nothing to help our most-vulnerable students while they ignore or exacerbate glaring opportunity gaps. She has consistently pushed a corporate agenda to privatize, de-professionalize and impose cookie-cutter solutions to public education. By nominating Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration has demonstrated just how out of touch it is with what works best for students, parents, educators and communities,” García added.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, hates DeVos.

The president-elect, in his selection of Betsy DeVos, has chosen the most ideological, anti-public education nominee put forward since President Carter created a Cabinet-level Department of Education.

In nominating DeVos, Trump makes it loud and clear that his education policy will focus on privatizing, defunding and destroying public education in America.

DeVos has no meaningful experience in the classroom or in our schools. The sum total of her involvement has been spending her family’s wealth in an effort to dismantle public education in Michigan. Every American should be concerned that she would impose her reckless and extreme ideology on the nation.

As if AFT doesn’t promote reckless and extreme ideology.  She is also an outsider and frankly I don’t see that as a bad thing.

Conclusion

While Betsy DeVos wouldn’t be my first (or second or third or fourth) choice Trump could have picked someone far worse (like Michelle Rhee). I don’t believe it is likely that her nomination will be blocked unless Senate Democrats hold together in opposition and are joined by some Republicans.

I do hope she will work to increase real local control. I hope she does not exercise influence over state standards and tests. I hope that in this spirit she will approve state plans required by the Every Student Succeeds Act instead of micromanaging states like we have seen under the Obama administration. I hope that under the Trump administration we see federal funds sent to states in the form of block grants in order to give them the most control.

Trump has hinted at closing the U.S. Department of Education. I suspect that will be an empty promise, but if she can help lead an effort to reduce the federal role in education that will be praise worthy.

I will give Mrs. DeVos a chance, just like the one I’m giving President-elect Trump, to lead and see what she will do.

Filed Under: Education, U.S. Politics Tagged With: American Federation of Teachers, American Principles Project, Betsy DeVos, Bill Huizenga, Bobby Jindal, CATO Institute, Common Core, Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, homeschooling, Jane Robbins, Justin Amash, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, National Education Association, Neal McClusky, Newt Gingrich, Randi Weingarten, Sandra Stotsky, school choice

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