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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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School Choice: Fig Leaf of the Pro-Common Core Right

https://www.nas.org/articles/school_choice_fig_leaf_of_the_pro_common_core_right

School Choice: Fig Leaf of the Pro-Common Core Right | National Association of Scholars

This article was originally published by the New Boston Post.

A recent report by the conservative Heritage Foundation suggests that the best way to fight the controversial Common Core educational standards is to oppose the “centralization of education.” The report tells dissident parents that the best way to fight Common Core and improve schools is to promote “school choice.”

But the truth is that mediocre standards, a poor curriculum based on them, and academically underqualified teachers are the biggest problems facing our schools – and they are likely to persist even with decentralization.

In part, that is because public charter schools (a major symbol of school choice) must also address Common Core-aligned tests and its standards.

But, even were they not required to “get with the program,” charter schools and vouchers are unavailable to most parents of public school children because these choices, when they exist, are mainly for urban communities whose children are trapped in failing schools. In fact, the kind of school choice studied by education researchers in most education journals has no meaning for the vast majority of American students. For the parents of these students, opting them out of federal and state mandated tests, or simply home schooling, is a far better weapon against the damaging centralization of education in this country than charter schools and vouchers.

Moreover, the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed by Congress in December 2015 and immediately signed into law by President Obama, now requires that every state adopt ‘college- and career-ready’ standards (like those contained in Common Core).

So, although the new law purports to somewhat decentralize educational decision-making, it in fact all but guarantees that Common Core’s standards — or a set of standards that lend themselves to a Common Core-based test — will likely remain in place in most states.

Even left to their own devices, many state and local education elites — a fair number of whom are heavily invested in the Common Core regime — would continue to push Common Core-type standards, even if under another name.

In fact, in some states, public officials and activists have deliberately deceived the public in outright defiance of the expressed will of the legislature to revise or eliminate Common Core’s standards. (This was the case in South Carolina, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Jersey, and seems to be happening in Texas.)

Although “rebranding” is the generic name of the strategy, the specific mechanisms used by state departments of education to ensure they maintain Common Core or Common Core-aligned standards vary and include: (1) changing the test’s name; (2) using a restricted online review methodology that limits reviewers of state standards to a standard-by-standard review; (3) stacking review committees and granting them limited purview; (4) skewing public discussions on the matter or not allowing the public to weigh in at all; and (5) relying on rigged external reports.

It’s time the media and our education researchers looked more closely at what’s happening on the ground in each state. And Massachusetts is a good place to start.

In Massachusetts, the Gates Foundation is funding an existing but weak and virtually unknown organization — the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) — to oppose parents who don’t like the state’s current Common Core – aligned standards (standards that do not apply to Bill Gates’s children at their expensive private school in Seattle).

MBAE is desperately fighting a grassroots effort by parents across the state to ditch Common Core and restore the state’s former standards – which were both more substantive and more rigorous. Despite opposition from the education elites, Massachusetts parents have collected enough signatures for an initiative petition that would put the abolition of Common Core on the November 2016 election ballot.

But the elites at MBAE are paying the pricey Boston law firm of Foley Hoag to sue the state Attorney General (a Democrat) claiming that the petition was unconstitutionally certified.

Massachusetts parents would like to let all its citizens — teachers, parents, taxpayers, and others — vote on whether to get rid of Common Core’s standards and to restore the superior standards they once had.

But even if the public rejects Common Core, dissident parents and educators will need to be vigilant if they are to ensure that Common Core is not re-imposed through the back door.

Only by consistently staying on top of curricular changes; advocating high quality, substantive standards; and electing school committee members who demand high standards for their teachers can we make schools better for all children.

Activists who believe that charters, choice, and decentralization can solve the problem are in for a rude awakening.

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Betsy DeVos: Funded Pro-Muslim, Anti-Israel Curriculum; Affirmative Action Pimp

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/83731/betsy-devos-affirmative-action-pimp-islamo-panderer-guess-who-her-brother-is/

Betsy DeVos: Funded Pro-Muslim, Anti-Israel Curriculum; Affirmative Action Pimp; Guess Who Her Brother Is

November 23, 2016, - 4:26 pm

By Debbie Schlussel

A lot of conservatives are gushing over Betsy DeVos, the rich chick whom Donald Trump chose today as his Education Secretary. They claim she’s a good choice because she supports charter schools and school choice. Don’t believe the hype. I have personal experience with this woman, and she’s an alarming choice–especially if you are concerned about America’s kids being indoctrinated with Islam at school. Here’s why . . .

As many readers know, I’m a lifelong Michiganian (I HATE the term “Michigander”–I ain’t a male goose). So I know a lot about Betsy DeVos, most of it not very good.

* She funded ANTI-ISRAEL, Pro-Muslim curriculum in America’s Public Schools.

Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos, financed anti-Israel, pro-Muslim propaganda posing as “curriculum” in America’s public schools. The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation financed the anti-Israel, pro-Muslim MidEast Policy Council’s “Teach MidEast” and its “Bridges at School” curriculum. (She’s also a Common Core supporter and fought to make this anti-Israel crap part of the Common Core agenda taught at America’s public schools.)

Bridges at School is a topical curriculum developed for American middle school classrooms. Contextualizing the Arab World and providing a unique series of both critical thinking and creative exercises that shed light on the rich historical, scientific, mathematical, religious, and cultural legacy of the region, this program focuses on the themes of global citizenship and identity through a series of analysis-based activities. Bridges at School highlights poetry and values-based paired texts; fashion and style; visual art; food and spice; drama; music; language; medicine and science; and media. Activities are available free of charge via the online platform NextLesson. Development funding for Bridges at School is courtesy of Donna Pearson Chapman and The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation.

* She supports extremist Muslims who aid and abet Islamic terrorist groups, bring terrorism-supporting Muslim illegal aliens into the United States, and boycott Israel.

Betsy DeVos and her husband Dick DeVos (also born into money) are donors and contributors to ACCESS–the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services. And they also attend ACCESS annual fundraising dinners.

As I’ve reported on this site previously, ACCESS–which receives millions of dollars in government grants and aid–actively brings Muslim illegal aliens into the United States and helps them stay here. ACCESS continues to date to bring thousands of pregnant Muslim women from around the world into the United States to defraud Medicaid and give birth to their children here–making them U.S. citizens and eligible for entitlements and voting privileges. 

ACCESS was founded by Ismael Ahmed as a campaign to get the Big Three automakers to divest from Israel and companies that do business with it. ACCESS sponsored the Divestment (from Israel) Conference at the University of Michigan. ACCESS opposed and lobbied Congress against making it illegal to donate to Islamic terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, HAMAS, and Islamic Jihad. Fortunately, the efforts failed and Bill Clinton signed a package into law.

As I’ve also noted, ACCESS also spent thousands of dollars in government money to provide job training and training for commercial drivers licenses and HazMat haulding certificates to members of the Detroit Al-Qaeda terror cell. And its tax-funded Arab American National Museum features several anti-Israel, anti-Semitic “exhibits” and “art.”

When Betsy DeVos’ husband, Dick, was running for Governor of Michigan (he was trounced), I asked him why he and his wife supported ACCESS and why they opposed our efforts to end government-sponsored discrimination in the form of affirmative action.

He was flustered, didn’t have an answer, and had his handlers escort me out of the event.

* She’s An Affirmative Action Pimp and Plays the Race Card.

I was general counsel for the courageous Ward Connerly’s Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI), for which Michigan voters voted in overwhelming numbers in 2006. MCRI’s purpose was to eliminate race-and-gender-based preferences in admissions, hiring, and promotions in public institutions and government in Michigan. In other words, get rid of institutional racism against White males and in favor of Blacks, Hispanics, women, etc.

Betsy DeVos, as then-Chair (yup, a piece of furniture–‘cuz, G-d-forbid, you use the term “chairwoman”) of the Michigan Republican Party, came out repeatedly and very publicly against us. She called us “RAAAAAAYCIST!” Yup, lily-White, privileged Betsy DeVos–who was born into and then also married great wealth and never had to work a day in her charmed life–called Ward Connerly, a self-made Black man, a “racist.” She worked against MCRI and brought the full power of the Michigan Republican Party to bear against us. She also put her daddy’s and hubby’s daddy’s money to work against us. And she tried to pressure Republicans who sat on the committee that certified what qualified for the ballot, to vote against us.

Despite DeVos’ siding with the likes of Jesse Jackson and Weird Al Sharpton and their acolytes in Michigan (and she was our loudest critic–louder than anyone on the left), we won overwhelmingly by a margin of 3-2 in a virtual election landslide unheard of for a ballot initiative in Michigan.

As a lifelong Michiganian, I can tell you that Betsy DeVos is and always has been part of the GOP establishment here in Michigan. She’s never been seen as a conservative.

And, now, Betsy DeVos is Trump’s choice for Secretary of Education. Look for her to pimp her anti-Israel propaganda further into America’s education system. Don’t look for her to end the wasteful, highly-discriminatory, Department of Education efforts at “diversity” and affirmative action at schools and universities. And look for her to keep up her usual efforts at being a dhimmi Islamo-panderer. In other words, look for those anti-Israel, anti-American, pro-Muslim textbooks to continue to be in the curricula throughout America’s public schools. Betsy won’t lift a finger to change the crap that America is teaching our kids.

In other words, it’ll be biz as usual at the Trump Department of Education. Same as it ever was.

***

One other thing: Betsy DeVos’ brother is Erik Prince, the founder and chief of Blackwater for many years. I’d much prefer him running anything in government to her. He knows what Muslims are like. He had to deal with them in their natural habitat and managed to keep the American dignitaries his company was hired to protect, safe.

Sadly, his sis just doesn’t get it. And she never will.

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/12/rhetoric-bipartisan-every-student-succeeds-act-cant-mask-federal-control-education/

Rhetoric of ‘Bipartisan’ Every Student Succeeds Act Can’t Mask Its Federal Control of Education

File Photo: David Jones/PA Wire URN:21969286/AP

by Dr. Susan Berry12 Dec 20158

Establishment Washington Republicans could not say enough this past week about how the 1,061-page Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reduces the federal government’s role in education and that it eliminates the fed’s coercion of states to stick with the unpopular Common Core standards. Perhaps most significant to these Republicans is that the bill was a self-proclaimed model of “bipartisanship.”

With the demise of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the signing into law of the ESSA, some Americans could be swayed into believing the U.S. Department of Education had practically been dismantled. This is hardly the case.

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“In fact, ESSA will have pretty much the opposite effect,” writes Jane Robbins, senior fellow at American Principles Project, at The Pulse 2016. “It lays out particular requirements for state standards and uses code language throughout that gives the federal government the tools to pressure the states to stick with Common Core rather than risking their federal money by adopting something better.”

“It maintains the federally dictated testing regimen and requires states to implement assessments that are expensive, that have been proven to be ineffective and unworkable, and that operate not by assessing students’ academic knowledge but rather by measuring their attitudes and dispositions,” she continues.

Contrary to what Republican leaders such as Sen. Lamar Alexander are asserting – that the law provides for a more “limited” role for the federal government in education – ESSA cements into law a new federal preschool program, so that what used to be the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), of which the ESSA is now the latest version, now extends federal control to preschool as well.

The new law also provides for President Obama’s special project known as the “21st Century Community Learning Centers.” Robbins explains:

[This] means that schools will be expanded to replace family and church as the center of every child’s life, offering myriad “services” including mental-health programs. Few things should alarm parents more than the prospect of the government’s assessing their child’s mental health and proceeding to fix any problem the government claims to find. But this is what the Republican Congress has given us.

The fact that Obama signed the bill the day after it passed the Senate, referring to it as a “Christmas miracle” of bipartisanship; that it was supported in a floor speech by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; that its advocates include the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the owners of the copyright of the Common Core standards – the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers – may say it all.

Coming from the left, The Atlantic also asserts the D.C. rhetoric on the ESSA is “bloated.” While NCLB had clearly become a bureaucratic boondoggle, and its death “is certainly cause for excitement,” the publication asserts, “In reality, schools may not see much on-the-ground change.”

The Atlantic continues:

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia already have waivers from No Child Left Behind’s “most troublesome and restrictive requirements”—flexibility granted several years ago by the Obama administration in exchange for states’ commitment to “setting their own higher, more honest standards for student success.” This means that most of the country’s students have already been learning under a system that eschewed much of No Child Left Behind’s most obvious and onerous aspects—and looks a lot like the system envisioned in Every Student Succeeds. States with waivers were essentially allowed to set their own goals for raising achievement, come up with their own strategies for turning around struggling schools, and design their own methods of measuring student progress.

In fact, however, states must still have their standards approved by the U.S. Education Secretary under ESSA – which still sounds like a substantial amount of federal control.

The New Hampshire-based Cornerstone Policy Research observes as well that federal control of private schools is also provided for in the ESSA. Page 186 of the law states:

(3) EQUITY.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—Educational services and other benefits for such private school children shall be equitable in comparison to services and other benefits for public school children participating under this part, and shall be provided in a timely manner.

(B) OMBUDSMAN.— To help ensure such equity for such private school children, teachers, and other educational personnel, the State educational agency involved shall designate an ombudsman to monitor and enforce the requirements of this part.’’;

(i) IN GENERAL.— Expenditures for educational services and other benefits to eligible private school children shall be equal to the proportion of funds allocated to participating school attendance areas based on the number of children from low- income families who attend private schools…

In addition, an entire section of the law, beginning on page 833, is titled, “Participation by Private School Children and Teachers:”

(A) IN GENERAL.— Educational services and other benefits provided under this section for private school children, teachers, and other educational personnel shall be equitable in comparison to services and other benefits for public school children, teachers, and other educational personnel participating in the program and shall be provided in a timely manner.

‘(B) OMBUDSMAN.—To help ensure equitable services are provided to private school children, teachers, and other educational personnel under this section, the State educational agency involved shall direct the ombudsman…

Cornerstone notes that while the provision for private schools is intended to channel federal funds to private schools, “We know that with federal dollars comes federal control.”

“We’re still waiting for a candidate to offer full-voiced leadership on the education crisis (which is a constitutional crisis) in our country,” Robbins concludes. “Who will lead the ‘Repeal ESSA’ campaign?”

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/23/trump-announces-gop-mega-donor-betsy-devos-education-secretary/

Donald Trump Announces Pro-Common Core Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

by Dr. Susan Berry23 Nov 20169459

President-elect Donald J. Trump will nominate Betsy DeVos, a brilliant and passionate education advocate, as Education Secretary.

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— Transition 2017 (@transition2017) November 23, 2016

Anti-Common Core grassroots groups of parents and teachers urged Trump to abandon DeVos as his choice, citing her support for the education reform policies of pro-Common Core Jeb Bush and her influence through the Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP) in favor of Common Core.

Karen Braun who writes at Stop Common Core in Michigan noted:

GLEP is a strong supporter of the Common Core and its continued implementation in Michigan. They are part of the Michigan Coalition for High Student Standards which opposes SB 826 to Repeal and Replace Common Core, science, social studies, and aligned assessments with pre-common core Massachusetts standards. Stop Common Core in Michigan believes there is a high correlation between candidates who accept the GLEP endorsement and their future votes on legislation.

GLEP claims NOT to have a litmus test on Common Core. This allows candidates to say they are against common core and still gain the endorsement of GLEP.  But DeVos is a champion for “school choice” while at the same time continuing the implementation of common national standards. The DeVos definition of “school choice” is the freedom to choose which common core school will track your child from cradle-to-career (P20). All Michigan charters must use common national standards. That’s NOT true choice.

Like Bill Gates, Betsy DeVos has some money and has some things she’d like to see different. Like all good investors, DeVos likely expects a return on her investment. And if you don’t play the game under their rules and vote the way you want her to vote, you may find yourself challenged the next time you run for office.

DeVos, whose family founded Amway, was an at-large delegate for pro-Common Core Ohio Gov. John Kasich. Kasich received a grade of “F” at The Pulse 2016 for his support of the controversial standards. The former presidential candidate referred to parent activists in his state fighting against the Core as a “runaway internet campaign.”

Trump likely chose DeVos because of her support for public/private partnership charter schools. While on the campaign trail, Trump said Common Core was a “disaster,” and criticized Jeb Bush for his support for the standards. Trump also said he would get Washington, D.C. out of education, and said he favored local control of education and the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education.

Frank Cannon, president of American Principles Project, said in a statement prior to the announcement of DeVos’ nomination:

President-elect Trump rightly slammed Governor Jeb Bush for his support of Common Core on the campaign trail. Betsy DeVos would be a very Jeb-like pick, and the idea that Trump would appoint a Common Core apologist as Secretary of Education seems unlikely.

President-elect Donald J. Trump will nominate Betsy DeVos, a brilliant and passionate education advocate, as Education Secretary.

— Transition 2017 (@transition2017) November 23, 2016

In a news release, the campaign says:

“Betsy DeVos is a brilliant and passionate education advocate,” said President-elect Donald J. Trump. “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,” said Ms. DeVos. “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.”

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https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/25/william-james-on-habit/

William James on the Psychology of Habit

“We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar.”

By Maria Popova

“We are what we repeatedly do,” Aristotle famously proclaimed. “Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Perhaps most fascinating in Michael Lewis’s altogether fantastic recent Vanity Fair profile of Barack Obama is, indeed, the President’s relationship with habit — particularly his optimization of everyday behaviors to such a degree that they require as little cognitive load as possible, allowing him to better focus on the important decisions, the stuff of excellence.

I found this interesting not merely out of solipsism, as it somehow validated my having had the same breakfast day in and day out for nearly a decade (steel-cut oats, fat-free Greek yogurt, whey protein powder, seasonal fruit), but also because it isn’t a novel idea at all. In fact, the same tenets Obama applies to the architecture of his daily life are those pioneering psychologist and philosopher William James wrote about in 1887, when he penned Habit (public library; public domain) — a short treatise on how our behavioral patterns shape who we are and what we often refer to as character and personality.

When we look at living creatures from an outward point of view, one of the first things that strike us is that they are bundles of habits. In wild animals, the usual round of daily behavior seems a necessity implanted at birth in animals domesticated, and especially in man, it seems, to a great extent, to be the result of education. The habits to which there is an innate tendency are called instincts; some of those due to education would by most persons be called acts of reason. It thus appears that habit covers a very large part of life, and that one engaged in studying the objective manifestations of mind is bound at the very outset to define clearly just what its limits are.

James begins with a strictly scientific, physiological account of the brain and our coteries of ingrained information patterns, exploring the notion of neuroplasticity a century before it became a buzzword of modern popular neuroscience and offering this elegant definition:

Plasticity … in the wide sense of the word, means the possession of a structure weak enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough not to yield all at once.

He then bridges the body and the mind to shed light on how “habit loops” dominate our lives:

What is so clearly true of the nervous apparatus of animal life can scarcely be otherwise than true of that which ministers to the automatic activity of the mind … Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself; so that we find ourselves automatically prompted to think, feel, or do what we have been before accustomed to think, feel, or do, under like circumstances, without any consciously formed purpose, or anticipation of results.

He eventually brings this lens to social science, painting a somewhat ominous picture of habit as a kind of trance:

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor. It alone prevents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from being deserted by those brought up to tread therein. It keeps the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through the winter; it holds the miner in his darkness, and nails the countryman to his log cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of snow; it protects us from invasion by the natives of the desert and the frozen zone. It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and to make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, because there is no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin again. It keeps different social strata from mixing. Already at the age of twenty-five you see the professional mannerism settling down on the young commercial traveller, on the young doctor, on the young minister, on the young counsellor-at-law. You see the little lines of cleavage running through the character, the tricks of thought, the prejudices, the ways of the ‘shop,’ in a word, from which the man can by-and-by no more escape than his coat-sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds. On the whole, it is best he should not escape. It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

This brings us to the question of education, whose responsibility it is to chaperone the formation of habit and curtail the very daily deliberations of which Obama has gladly rid himself:

The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.

He proceeds to offer three maxims for the successful formation of new habits:

1. The acquisition of a new habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must take care to launch ourselves with as strong and decided an initiative as possible. Accumulate all the possible circumstances which shall reenforce the right motives; put yourself assiduously in conditions that encourage the new way; make engagements incompatible with the old; take a public pledge, if the case allows; in short, envelop your resolution with every aid you know. This will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all.
2. Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. Continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right … It is surprising how soon a desire will die of inanition if it be never fed.
3. Seize the Very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you
   aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new ‘set’ to
   the brain.

Of course, as is often the case with famous advice, James immediately follows up with a disclaimer that echoes Joan Didion’s eloquent definition of character:

No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved. And this is an obvious consequence of the principles we have laid down. A ‘character,’ as J. S. Mill says, ‘is a completely fashioned will’; and a will, in the sense in which he means it, is an aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm and prompt and definite way upon all the principal emergencies of life. A tendency to act only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain ‘grows’ to their use.

He makes a case, once again, for the consistency of effort, offering one final maxim:

Just as, if we let our emotions evaporate, they get into a way of evaporating; so there is reason to suppose that if we often flinch from making an effort, before we know it the effort-making capacity will be gone; and that, if we suffer the wandering of our attention, presently it will wander all the time. Attention and effort are … but two names for the same psychic fact.

[…]

Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin.

He cautions about the gravity of our habitual choices, however small they may seem:

The physiological study of mental conditions is thus the most powerful ally of hortatory ethics. The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. 

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never so little scar. … Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out.

James concludes with a timeless validation of grit as the secret to success:

Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working-day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of his business, the power of judging in all that class of matter will have built itself up within him as a possession that will never pass away. Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in youths embarking on arduous careers than all other causes put together.

Habit is now in the public domain and is available for free in its entirety in multiple formats.

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https://commoncorediva.wordpress.com/2016/11/22/gravy-anyone/

Gravy, Anyone?

November 22, 2016From the Files Tuesday, Monday Musings'lifelong learning', anti CCSS warriors, CCSS Machine, charter schools, congress, CTE (Career Tech Education), Democrat, ESAs (education savings accounts), ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), freedom, gravy train, HEA (Higher Education Act), HUD, Independent, LADDER Act, National Workforce Council, Republican, school choice, U.S. Dept of Labor, U.S. Dept. of Education, WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act)

Anti CCSS/Fed Ed Warriors, we find ourselves upon the season of thanks. Pretty soon the season of giving will be upon us. We know full well what the CCSS Machine has given us so far via ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) and its related laws (HEA and WIOA, Higher Education Act and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act). We know each of these have been thankless ‘gifts’ to our nation. And the CCSS Machine isn’t done yet…

No, much like the gravy which will be served in mass quantities in a few days, the legislation to support federal overreach in education AS well as State legislation allowing the federal overreach, is drowning us all. And there will be more to come in 2017.

So, what’s in this ‘education gravy boat’ for 2017? Lots of lumps! For example:

1) Continued implementation of the ESSA
2) The re-authorization of HEA to complete the birth to grave ‘lifelong learning’ streamline
3) The fallacy of ‘school choice’ via vouchers and education savings accounts
4) Charter schools as a solution
5) Data mining and assessing
6) The fallacy that CCSS’s adult form, CTE (Career Tech Education) is a saving grace for our nation.

Who are the ‘gravy makers’? Congress, in a word.

Anyone, and I include ourselves as Warriors, who says any of these are ‘real solutions’ to our American education reform, is not being objective about the evidence. 

Between all the research produced here and on other anti CCSS information blogs, we’ve learned how #1 above is a guise used to fool everyone. The CCSS Machine, with Sen. Lamar Alexander leading the lies, has created a ‘perfect stream’ of illusion. That illusion will be once again, played out with his leadership in re-authorizing the HEA.

“School choice” is also a masterful illusion. ESSA wipes school choice out! The incentives being dangled in the form of vouchers and education savings accounts are the brain child of PRO COMMON CORE groups, not anti CCSS ones.

Congress has been anxious to pour an extremely thick layer of CTE gravy on our nation. They’ve been doing it this entire Congressional recess!

So, Warriors, in 2017, we’ll see more gravy produced and poured. Especially if we are helping promote the 6 fallacies above.

Forget if we’re Republicans or Democrats, forget who has the majority of seats. We are MORE than these 2 parties. We should be FREE and INDEPENDENT in America, not tied to a sinking gravy boat of conformity in education!

You wish to see American education excel? We have to ditch our globally tied agreements, especially for workforce based learning. That is a message not only Congress needs to have poured over them, but our Executive Branch leaders!

We MUST stop the current federal and local legislation designed to fit into the global workforce scheme. For example, the LADDER Act, creates a ‘new’ Executive Branch, independent, National Workforce Council. The Council is to be made of of the Secretaries and Leaders of federal agencies, such as the U.S. Depts of Ed/Labor/HUD, and more!

With the ESSA’s total implementation, these very departments will have an insane amount of lumpy gravy to drown us in.

Yes, I know, these are truths we must face. They have also been very unpopular in 2016.
Will they be just as unpopular in 2017? Truth is truth, no matter how popular or ‘glamorous’ it is.
We are not the first generation of anti CCSS Warriors, but we may be the LAST.

The question is, how much of the CCSS Machine (aka:gravy train) are we willing to stunt?
I, for one, am willing to fight with you AGAINST this.

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Near or far, I wish you and your family a wonderful celebration.

Warriors, I do wish you a blessed Thanksgiving. Look for my next article this weekend in my regularly published “Weekend News”.

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