Charter Fans Challenge DeVos

The Massachusetts Charter Public [sic] School Association has joined the discussion of Betsy DeVos-- and they've joined it by asking Senator Elizabeth Warren to grill DeVos a little more thoroughly.

Don't worry. Confirmation hearings have to end some time.

MCPSA has had a rough few months. In November, Massachusetts voters resounding rejected a proposal to lift the charter cap and let charters roam free, feasting on public tax dollars. But on January 9th, they sent a letter to Warren that opened with this paragraph:

As the Association representing the 70 Massachusetts commonwealth charter public schools, we are writing to express our concerns over the nomination of Elisabeth DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education. We do not express these reservations lightly, but we believe it is important to raise certain issues that should be addressed by the nominee.

So what's the problem? MCPSA assures the senator that they are "hopeful" that Trump-DeVos will continue "the bipartisan efforts of the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations" to keep promoting charter schools. But they have concerns.

They are concerned about reports about DeVos voucher support and charter proliferation in Michigan "that has been widely criticized for lax oversight and poor academic performance, and appears to be dominated by for-profit interests." They even cite a Detroit Free Press piece on the subject.

MCPSA wants to remind their senator that they are super-duper, and the Massachusetts charters are just the best ever (a hugely arguable point, but let's not get sidetracked today). And they believe that oversight and accountability are a big part of their success. And they are concerned that DeVos has a history of opposing oversight and accountability, and somebody had better ask her about that and just, you know, make sure that she is going to support rules and accountability and oversight and demands for quality.

Meanwhile, the New York Times editorial board, which has never met a charter school scheme it didn't like, also came out to express "big worries" about DeVos. The nominee

also faces a big challenge in explaining the damage she’s done to public education in her home state, Michigan. She has poured money into charter schools advocacy, winning legislative changes that have reduced oversight and accountability. About 80 percent of the charter schools in Michigan are operated by for-profit companies, far higher than anywhere else. She has also argued for shutting down Detroit public schools, with the system turned over to charters or taxpayer money given out as vouchers for private schools. In that city, charter schools often perform no better than traditional schools, and sometimes worse.

Goodness, New York Times! Are you ready to join the rest of us defenders of public education? That would be... unexpected. So what's going on? Why would stalwart charter fans be concerned about a DeVos USED? I can think of four reasons.

1) Protecting the brand.

If you let any kind of riff-raff set up a charter school, and they do a lousy job of it, you hurt the brand. "Charter school" becomes synonymous with "crappy school" instead of "cool private school you can send your kids to for free." Worst case scenario, your lousy practitioners of the charter arts screw up so badly that the public starts calling for really tight regulation and oversight. Nightmare scenario-- some lunkhead messes up so badly that charters end up with more scrutiny and regulation that regular old public schools. And then the fun times are over for everyone. You let one bad apple in, and before you know it, none of us can have nice things.

2) Protecting the coalition.

As suggested by MCPSA's bipartisan President supporter list, reformsters in general and charter fans in particular have built a bipartisan coalition. Conservatives get a free market, highly profitable system of education-flavored school-like businesses, and lefties get a system that supposedly uplifts the poor and restores social equity. The rise of Trump has been a real threat to this coalition, and while some of the pretend progressive groups like Democrats [sic] for Education Reform have mapped out a sort of two step (don't work IN her department, but totally work WITH her department) the fact remains that it is going to be hard to rally progressives and justice warriors behind a Trump administration. But the newly formed Democratic Education Caucus may be just what they fear. Some figure far, far more conciliatory than Betsy DeVos will be needed to bridge that gap.

3) It's that voucher thing.

Not all charter fans love the idea of vouchers. Vouchers, among other things, take a whole bunch of money off the table because the same day that vouchers go into effect, a whole bunch of Catholic and other pre-existing private schools get a windfall. Vouchers mean that charter schools have to compete not just with public schools, but with all the parochial and private schools already out there. Vouchers do not necessarily work out well for charter operators.

4) The threat of the Way-Too-Free Market.

Imagine that you are in the jewelry business and you are creating 14 carat gold. What a pain would it be for someone to enter your market selling rings that are labeled 14 carat gold but which are actually made out of brass, and discover that there are no regulations that forbid them from lying about their product and nobody with the authority to make them stop.

In states like Massachusetts, where there is at least a light smattering of regulation, charter school operators compete on a level-ish playing field because they have to provide an entity that bears at least a passing resemblance to an actual school. But when we get into states like Ohio and Florida and, yes, Michigan, we find people entering the charter school game by providing something that barely resembles a school, pumped up with advertising full of lie-soaked baloney (here's a Florida example). How is a charter school that actually wants to be a school-- how is that supposed to compete with some charter scam artist?

Or look at it this way. Free market competition, particularly between businesses that can't really increase their revenue streams, is not about pursuing quality, but about cutting costs. Regulations essentially establish a financial floor beneath which the business may not sink, established by costs that may not be cut (e.g. auto makers cannot cut costs by removing seat belts). Ideally, that floor is also set by the business person's ethics, but the invisible hand can exert a pretty powerful force, and there will always be people who are far more interested in making a buck than doing the right thing. So charter school accountability and oversight help establish a level beneath which operators may not stoop, and some operators will always want to make sure that their less ethical brethren are restrained from-- well, I would call it cheating, but then, it's not cheating if there's no rule against it. If the rules say you can establish a charter where attendance is not mandatory and you only have to have one teacher for every 200 students, it's not cheating to do so-- but it sure gives you an advantage over competitors.

Put one last way-- charter operators are happy to have ways to undercut public schools, but they would rather not have other charter operators undercut them.

It will be interesting to see if opposition to DeVos continues to appear on her reformy flank. Our first few months in Trumpistan will undoubtedly give rise to much political shifting and re-alignment; only time will tell how that will shake out in the education biz.

Should Devos Make This Argument for Choice?

Rick Hess (American Enterprise Institute) is using the occasion of the DeVos nomination to make some points about choice as a reform strategy. This is fair-- all of us in the education debates are both agitated about the nomination and aware that, for at least these fifteen minutes, American political discourse is actually paying attention to education. So we're all busy articulating our thoughts about the subject; there's no reason reformsters shouldn't do the same.

So Hess is at National Review with "What Betsy DeVos Should Tell the Senate," a four-part argument for choice that is his dream speech for DeVos, a Hess-crafted argument for choice programs. As is often the case, while I disagree with almost everything he has to say, I appreciate his ability to articulate it clearly so that I can more clearly understand where he goes wrong. So let's look at the four acts of this failed play:

First, teaching and learning are natural, intuitive acts. They aren’t the exotic product of some mysterious alchemy.

There are, of course, other possibilities that are neither gut-based or alchemic. For instance, teaching is a craft that requires training and experience and a serious background of knowledge. Hess's point that "humans are natural learners" with brains "hard-wired" to understand and learn and know is absolutely legit. His observation that "adults are predisposed to share knowledge, interests and skills" might a bit more open to debate. His implication that, therefor, teaching is no big deal and probably anyone can do it (as it doesn't require arcane training or special setting) is arguably false.

His bigger point is that "systems, structures, and bureaucratic rules are getting in the way--" and oh my God, I just realized that Rick Hess of the conservative AEI is actually a closet hippy! Fight the power! Stick it to the man! Let's just sit in a field somewhere and , you know, just be, and just let the learning flow naturally! Now I cannot shake the mental image of Hess in a dashiki with flowers in his hair.

But I digress. He's afraid that systems and bureaucratic baloney are getting in the way of the human dimension of education. That is undoubtedly true in some places. But his conclusion-- "Parental choice is a powerful way to keep the natural, human dimension of school improvement front and center"-- flows from nowhere. In fact, we need look no further than marquee charters like Success Academy or the many No Excuses schools to see choice schools where the natural, human dimension is deliberately and purposefully squelched.

There is no reason to expect that charters would be one iota more humanistic or open than public schools.

Second, Washington doesn’t run schools.

If only. Hess quotes his standard line here: "Washington can force states and districts to do things, but it cannot make them do those things well." On this, we are mostly in agreement. I might add that DC can also be effective in telling states and districts what they may not do ("No, you may not stick all of your students of color in that unfunded tinderbox next to the toxic waste plant.")

Hess's line is also problematic as an argument in favor of no regulation at all, but some regulation is necessary. Put another way, if you do "running a school" badly enough, you are no longer actually running a school. Put another way, to force states and districts to do a thing, you have to define the thing, which inexorably takes you toward defining how to do it well.

As words for DeVos to speak, this is also problematic for reasons laid out by Hess's colleague Andy Smarick. DeVos has spent her whole adult life trying to influence the exercise of power by government; given the steering wheel, will she really say, "We must let states do whatever they want, even if that means they ban vouchers and stifle choice."

Hess is also correct to say that we have seen "that inept teacher evaluation systems" have done harm, but ESSA requires some sort of system, and there is no sign that anyone in power knows what an ept system would look like, least of all a billionaire heiress who has never seen a public school teacher in action in her entire life.

Educators are trapped in the same dysfunctional school bureaucracies as students. They are beleaguered by inconstant school-board governance and frustrated by paperwork. They experience first-hand the problems of ill-conceived accountability systems and federal efforts to micromanage school discipline. Teachers have every right to be concerned about out-of-touch politicos and capricious bureaucrats.

He might have included federal efforts to force Common Core standards on his list, but his point is valid. In the schools, we are acutely aware of all the stupid things forced down upon us by state and federal bureaucrats.

However, as with the first point, there's no reason-- none at all-- to believe that charters and choice offer any sort of improvement. Most of the charter sector is built on the idea of giving teachers the least possible leverage. Hire young, inexperienced teachers and make sure that they have no job protections at all so that you can fire them at any time for any reason. This is not remotely a recipe for "empowering professionals," but it is the recipe that charter operators prefer. Being able to push aside "heavy-handed bureaucratic impediments" is no bonus if you simply replace them with heavy-handed corporate requirements to comply or be fired.

Finally, decades of federal education statutes have spawned a paralyzing tangle of rules, regulations, and mandates. Federal guidelines prevent districts from cutting spending that’s no longer productive, prohibit funds from being distributed in sensible ways, and impose crushing paperwork burdens on harried educators. This stifles schools and districts, along with online programs and personalized learning initiatives.

This is one of the oldest of the charter-choice arguments, and it continues to strike me as hugely unconvincing. 

You hire a housekeeper. You make the housekeeper wear handcuffs whenever they come to work. Then you fire them. "You do a lousy job with those handcuffs one, so we're going to hire someone else."

You have a car. Every day you eat at McFlabby's drive through and throw the garbage in the back seat. One day you say, "This car is a mess. I need to buy a new car."

Why not address the handcuffs and the mess? They're your handcuffs. It's your mess. Fix it rather than discarding the scene of your poor stewardship. If you believe that the Big Problem in education is bureaucratic red tape and over-regulation, then attack bureaucratic red tape and regulation. Push for proper use of the resources you have, rather than agitating for more resources. Because here's the other thing-- if you handcuffed the last housekeeper and dumped a mess in the last car, you'll probably do it all over again. This is why some conservatives oppose vouchers-- because they believe you cannot get government money that is not attached to government strings.

Will DeVos attempt to use any of Hess's arguments? I suppose anything's possible, but one of her problems as a nominee is that historically, DeVos's typical method of "persuasion" has been to threaten policy makers with her money-- if you don't give her what she wants, you will suffer consequences. This may be a great technique for a wealthy lobbyist or a billionaire who wants to change the world, but it's no way to run DC. Previous Secretaries have had trouble accomplishing anything because they wanted to boss Congress around or simply ignore the laws Congress passed and write their own-- there is no evidence that DeVos knows any methods of persuasion beyond brute monetary force.

I'm not looking for DeVos to adopt Hess's talking points, and I hope she doesn't for all the reasons listed above. But I'm not sure she can with a straight face. Hess argues that decades of federal rulemaking have "forced state and local officials into a 'compliance mindset,' distorting the impact of even reasonable-sounding rules." And once again, I don't really disagree with that assessment. I'm just not sure how someone who has demanded compliance in her career as an activist, acting in support of a charter-choice industry that regularly demands compliance of its students-- I'm not sure these are the right messengers for this idea.

Hess calls choice "a way of shifting power from far-off bureaucrats back to families and educators," and while I agree that shift would be welcome, that's not how school choice has worked so far.

Instead of shifting power to families, choice has shifted power to charter operators, who get to control what information is used in their marketing, get to decide which students they want to work with, and get to operate without transparency or accessibility to the parents and taxpayers. Parent "choice" is only of those schools made available to them by groups in boardrooms outside the community.

Instead of shifting power to educators, charters do their best to reduce educator power so that teachers must either take what is offered to them or walk away, must be compliant or lose their jobs, and must be willing to compromise principles because they have no means of speaking up nor protection when they do.

The transfer of power may, as Hess says, be sorely needed. But there are no signs that a choice system will involve such a transfer, and even fewer signs that Betsy DeVos is interested in such a transfer.

Warren Spanks DeVos

Elizabeth Warren has noticed that there will be only one, brief opportunity to grill Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos, and so today she has sent DeVos a letter outlining what sorts of answers she's looking for. The whole thing is sixteen pages long, and while Warren has not always been on the right side of education debates (in particular, she believes in the Big Standardized Test), she pulls no punches here, asking many of the questions that many of us want to see asked. You can read the whole 16-page missive here, but I'll hit the highights for you.

On the very first page, after outlining the reason for the letter, Warren outlines the situation with appropriate bluntness:

There is no precedent for an Education Department Secretary nominee with your lack of experience in public education. While past nominees for Secretary of Education have served as teachers, school system leaders, and governors, and came to the Department of Education with deep executive experience in public education, you have held no such position.

Warren notes that a review of DeVos's record shows that she has "largely advanced your policy agenda through others" mainly through money. Warren quotes DeVos's now-infamous line about expecting a return on her investment.


You are, of course, free to spend your fortune however you choose, but making large political contributions to 'buy influence' does not qualify you to help set policy for the education of America's school children.

Warren wraps up the executive summary by noting DeVos's "non-existent" record on higher ed, and then gets down to the specifics.

K-12 Education

While there is an extensive record of your millions of dollars in political spending to support privatizing elementary and secondary schools and sending public education funds to private and religious schools through voucher schemes, there is little evidence that there efforts have improved public education or have helped students learn and achieve.

Warren lays out (this whole letter includes footnotes) the DeVos record on pumping vouchers, then notes that the evidence on vouchers is "mixed at best." Warren also notes the role of vouchers in the history of segregation. Warren says she is "extremely concerned" about DeVos's "staunch support" for a system that will "siphon away much-needed public education funds" in a manner that allows voucher schools to sidestep standards and discrimnate.

Warren's K-12 questions include asking if DeVos will support only policies with rigorous basis in peer-reviewed evidence, would DeVos use her position to promote voucher systems-- including honoring the ESSA provision that prohibits the USED from meddling in such things. Will DeVos oppose any voucher program that results in a cut for public school funding? And how will she make sure that such programs don't further segregate schools?

Opposition to Accountability in K-12 Education

Warren lays out the long, sad history of DeVos's battle against charter accountability in Michigan, and the mess it has helped feed. She underlines both educational accountability in the broad sense and also as it applies to making sure that schools are "not shortchanging students of color, low-income students, English learners, students with disabilities, and other historically marginalized groups of students."

So Warren's line of questioning is simple-- will DeVos follow the law, and support the parts of ESSA that call for accountability. Will she ensure that schools, including for-profit charters, do not discriminate> Will she vigorously enforce the financial accountability pieces of ESSA? Will she demand that states make extra resources available to poorer schools, and will she punish states that don't?

Higher Education

Warren is "particularly concerned" about the DeVos "paper thin" record on higher ed. USED has a big stick to swing about higher ed, particularly in the management of a gigantic mountain of loan and grant money. Warren doesn't waste time indicting previous administrations-- she just notes there's a huge mess with the whole loan business, and she notes that she and Trump actually agree that "the federal government should not be making a profit off the backs of students trying to get an education."

The department has a trillion-dollar loan portfolio to manage, and Wall Street is salivating at the thought of buying up that debt so that they can soak those students debtors, a large portion of whom are in a real mess. Again, Warren gets into some details about the situation, throwing in stats and names. This is an issue she knows well, and about which DeVos has virtually never said a word.

So Warren asks if DeVos agrees with Warren and Trump on that backs of students thing. Does DeVos know of any "statutory authority" to re-privatize all that student loan? Will DeVos support metrics and measures to fins the bad actors in the student loan biz, and make them act a little less bad? Basically, Warren wants to know if DeVos will have student loan borrowers' collective backs, or will she side with the various sharks (including the federal government) that want to treat students as so much delicious chum.

Oversight of Public, Non-Profit, and For-Profit Colleges and Universities

Warren notes that in exchange for the gazillions of dollars of money that the feds pump, via students, into the higher ed system, the feds have a responsibility to make sure "that students receive the education they were promised and that taxpayer dollars are not wasted on loans to students who attend bogus schools (like, say, Trump University). She notes the abysmal mess that was Corinthian Colleges, generously gives the feds credit for trying to do better at protecting students and taxpayers.

Warren notes that DeVos has never said boo about higher ed policy, but "the very policies you have spend decades advocating for in elementary and secondary education-- more free taxpayer money for private and for-profit education operators with virtually no strings attached-- are the exact policies that have caused so many problems and harmed so many students in higher education." I have some problems with the outgoing administration's policies for higher ed accountability, but Warren is dead-on with this point-- what DeVos wants for K-12 has had disastrous results in higher education.

Warren has a long list of questions here, and they boil down to "In the ongoing struggle between debt-ridden students and predatory and even fraudulent colleges and universities, whose side will you be on? Whose interests are you going to preserve?" Warren's un-boiled-down questions are pointed, sharp and specific, with no room for wiggling.

Finale

America's students and their families need a Secretary of Education who will support public education, hold states and schools accountable for providig quality programs, protect the civil rights of all students, and meaningfully address the student debt and college affordability crisis. The next Secretary of Education must support adequate and equitable federal funding for public education, hold accountable all schools that receive taxpayer dollars-- from charter schools to for-profit colleges-- and ensure that they are delivering a world-class education for our students. These are the qualities I will be looking for in the next Secretary of Education, and I look forward to hearing from you and receiving your answers to my questions during your confirmation hearing.

There are things that I wish Warren understood, including the massive problems created in the hapless quest for federal accountability measures of local schools. But her proposed grilling of DeVos (and her low-nonsense assessment of DeVos's history and proclivities) looks good to me. It will be interesting to see how this goes-- Warren's questions are direct, clear, and specific, with little or no room for vague wobbly generalities. I don't expect a lot of good news to come out of these hearings, but a plain-language face-off between Warren and DeVos could at least provide some entertainment, and require DeVos to give some clear answers.

Plutocrat Romney Endorses DeVos

Mitt Romney's willingness to prostrate himself has been one of the many unpleasant surprises of the last year. At first, he was one of the GOP voices of reason, calling Trump a phony and a fraud who was “playing members of the American public for suckers.” Then Herr Trump waved the Secretary of State job, and Mittens set himself up for this:

Perhaps this was the very moment when he realized that he was never even going to be on the short list for Secretary, that Trump was exactly a very Trumpian revenge. Mittens took back all the mean things he said and made the trip to kiss the ring, only to be rejected and ignored. Give Herr Trump credit-- no politician has ever executed a more perfect F#@! You to a former rival.

And yet, this week, here comes Romney in the pages of the Washington Post to stick up for Trump's USED nomination, Betsy DeVos. There could be any number of reasons-- DeVos was a Romney supporter, and she circulates in the same circles of rarified richness where Trump aspires to visit, but Romney and DeVos actually live.

At any rate, Romney's defense of DeVos is really an indictment of his own failure to understand anything about education in the world of the Lesser People.

Romney understand the ed reform debates as being mostly about money.

Essentially, it’s a debate between those in the education establishment who support the status quo because they have a financial stake in the system and those who seek to challenge the status quo because it’s not serving kids well.

See that? Everyone who opposes ed reform is someone trying to make a buck off the system; the education "establishment" couldn't possibly be made up of people who have devoted their adult lives to public education, who are trained and experienced experts who understand what works and what doesn't.

And then he launches his argument in favor of DeVos.

First, he uses the old "she's rich, so she's impartial" argument. This is actually clever-- because DeVos, who inherited and married money, has never had to work for a living, she's unbiased (because being aware of and concerned about the interests of people who have to make a living is a kind of bias?) Her lack of anything remotely resembling experience with public education is a plus, you see, because she didn't come from an education job and she won't be looking for one afterwards, and so she can be perfectly unbiased while in office.

Her qualification? She "cares deeply about our children." My first question is, what does Romney mean by "our," because empathizing with that 47% of the public that is freeloading off the rich is not a Romney strong suit. If by "our" he means "we people who really count," then he may well be right.

My second question is-- seriously, is that the best qualification you can come up with? She cares deeply? When you go looking for medical treatment, do you look for an actual trained and experienced physician, or just some rich person who really cares about your health?

Next, Romney says its important to have someone who will challenge the status quo, and he pulls out the observation that we spend more for education now than we did in 1970. The establishment calls for smaller classes, which is just their sneaky way to get more teachers and more money-- certainly not because there's reason to believe that it works. And then Mitt goes on to explain that when he sent his kids off to school, he found a really cheap one where students were shoved into classrooms of 200-- ha, no, just kidding! Romney's children went to the Belmont Hill School for Boys, a school founded in 1923 by seven men looking for a school "that would allow for small classes and personal accountability." The student-teacher ration is 6:1. Tuition costs are about $35,000 per year.

The number Mitt throws out (based on CATO research) is $164,426 for K-12. Meanwhile, it costs $210,000 to put a boy through six years of the Belmont Hill School.

So when Romney says we spend too much on educating students, he actually means that we spend too much money educating students who don't come from rich families. You know. Those People.

Romney says that the "interests opposing DeVos's nominatoin" (you know-- those shadowy interests) keep mentioning that her work in Detroit has not worked out well. He tries to trot out some studies that show charter students doing better than the general population, which, given the freedom to cherry pick students, ought to be true. But it isn't. They have not only failed to succeed on their own, but the charter effect on the public system and the communities they are supposed to serve has been disastrous. Need another article-- there are plenty, including this indictment of Detroit charters by Doug Harris, who has been a charter cheerleader for New Orleans. Harris's most stinging point-- even charter-friendly philanthropists have stopped investing in Detroit's charter scene.

Romney also wants to debunk the criticism that DeVos has fought against any oversight or regulation for Michigan charters. All she wanted to do, he insists, is oppose "a new government bureaucracy intended to stifle choice and limit competition in Detroit education." Well, yes-- limiting by insisting that Detroit charters actually provide an education and account for how they're spending taxpayer money. The facts here are that DeVos opposed-- successfully--oversight that even many charter fans welcome, like not allowing a failing charter to open new branches.

Romney trots out his own experience in Massachusetts (class size doesn't matter at all) and winds back around to his main idea-- education is best served by people "who have no financial stake in the outcome" which-- wait! what? Do you suppose Mittens understands that he just argued against free-market competition as a instrument of school reform-- because that whole free-market competition thing-- which DeVos loves like she loves Jesus-- is supposed to work because when people have a financial stake in how a charter school does, they will work harder and be more innovative.

Hilariously, Romney's example of How This Works is McKinsey and Company, the king of consulting (which, I believe, involves being paid money in order to help other people make more money) and their insights into education.

So what's going on here? Is Romney a conservative or not? Does he believe in the healing, constructive power of money, or not?

Here's my best read. Romney is a plutocrat, a bettercrat who believes that Things Should Be Run by the Better Sort of People. For these folks, money is not the objective, and making more of it is not the goal-- it's just the way you keep score. If you have more money, that proves you're the Better Sort of Person. Trump has failed throughout his life to make it into these circles precisely because he doesn't understand that a true Bettercrat doesn't wave the money around, buy shiny stuff with it, fight over it, or actively pursue it.

I believe that Romney really believes that people who have no financial interest should run schools because their richness shows that they are the Better Sort of People who should run these things. But Bettercrats can't shake their belief that the only proof of success is "did it make money?"

I am truly excited that someone of Betsy DeVos’s capability, dedication and absence of financial bias is willing to take an honest and open look at our schools. The decades of applying the same old bromides must come to an end. The education establishment and its defenders will understandably squeal, but the interests of our children must finally prevail. 

Capable of what? Romney never really got into that. But she's dedicated, and she's wealthy, and that should be good enough for the rest of us who are, tellingly, described as "squealing" rather than "opposing" or "arguing." We are like farm animals, not like fellow human beings who matter just as much as plutocrats. We should just shut up and let our Betters do as they will. 
 

ICYMI: Last Gasp Weekend Edition (1/8)

Some readings from the week. Share what speaks to you, so that it can speak to other folks.

10 New Years Resolutions for Those Taking Charge at US Department of Education

Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute is reformster through and through, and Betsy DeVos has contributed to AEI, but this still makes for an interesting list of suggestions for the new regime

We Know What Works in Teaching

I found this by way of a former student who now teaches on the college level. Here's what we do and don't know about how to teach composition. maybe we could, you know, use the working stuff and stop doing the other foolishness.

Need for Cash Puts Charter Schools in Questionable Company

A look at how the need to generate revenue is making mess out of Ohio charter schools

I Can't Answer These Questions About My Own Poems

The blogging highlight of my last couple of weeks? I got to see this before the rest of y'all because Sara Holbrook is friend of this blog. This piece has traveled far and wide, but if you haven't seen it yet, you must. This is how inarguably nuts the Big Standardized Test biz has gotten.

How To Teach a Middle School Class in 49 Easy Steps

I used to teach in middle school. This seems close to what I remember.

Garrison Keillor Is Done

Keillor has not taken the Trump election well. This piece is worth reading for the last line alone.

Ten Questions for Betsy DeVos

Fellow Pennsylvania Russ Walsh would like our Senator Casey (who serves on HELP) to ask DeVos these questions. It's nice to dream, anyway.

Good Business Models for Education

We don't talk enough about the fact that reformsters don't just want to schools to be run with business practices, but with bad disproven business practices. Here's Sam Abrams in the LA Times suggesting some better business practices to use.

How Privatization Works (Part 2,351,142)

Here's a recent story from the DC area Fox affiliate that shows how things play out when you privatize a public service.

In this case, the service is roads. And this picture tells you what you need to know.

That's right-- $30 to use the express lane.

Express lanes are managed by Transurban, an Australian company that manages, develops, and owns urban toll roads. There's a whole website just for the express lanes of Transurban's piece of the giant paved hellhole that is DC roadways, and it offered an explanation of why they were suddenly gouging commuters on this particular evening:

Tolls for the Express Lanes are dynamic, meaning they change periodically based on real-time traffic conditions to keep the Lanes free-flowing. Because toll prices are based on demand, it is difficult to predict exactly what the tolls will be at any given time.

Tolls can range from as low as $0.20 per mile during less busy times, and up to approximately $1.00 per mile in some sections during rush hour. However, rates may rise significantly above the typical range for periods of time in the event of unusually heavy congestion or a specific event like a traffic accident or lane(s) closure.

Dynamic pricing means that tolls on the Express Lanes change periodically to keep the Lanes free-flowing. Sensors alongside the road monitor traffic levels and speed, and toll prices adjust to maintain free-flowing conditions in the Lanes – even during peak times – to provide value to customers. A network of electronic signs displays the latest toll prices.

Those of you who aren't east coasters may note that tolls for the express lanes are EZPass, a nifty system by which you put a sensor in your car and just breeze through toll booths and pay your toll electronically. So if you are plenty wealthy, or driving a company car, a toll like this doesn't affect your travels other than by keeping the riff-raff off the road so that you can still enjoy a speedy express lane trip. Perhaps that's what we mean by "provide value to customers." Of course, providing value to one customer means discouraging or blocking other customers from using the service at all. And suddenly-- voila!-- you can end up paying taxes to create a public service that you can't afford to use yourself.

All of this makes perfect business sense, right down to using high prices to manage demand for a service that is momentarily "scarce." Sure, it means that you have to forget the whole purpose of the operation in the first place-- in this case, providing roadways that serve all drivers in the DC area and keep the community as a whole functioning well. Now, instead of a single efficient(-ish) public roadway system, you get a two-tiered system, with better services for those who can afford them, and a guaranteed profit for private interests. Does this all seem vaguely familiar?

This will sound familiar, too. The argument for privatizing key roadways is that the state doesn't have enough money to do a really good job, and by bringing in private corporations, the service can get a great new infusion of cash and support-- an odd argument, since no corporation will fail to get every cent of their cash back, and then some, and the public will have lost any say over this. DC customers who find the price of the express lane obnoxious are free to call a "customer service" number at the company and register their distress with an answering machine. Good luck with that.

This is how charterized roads work-- service for some people, big costs for all people, and a voice for no people.This is what privatizing a public service looks like. (This is also, incidentally, what Herr Trump's proposed umpty-zillion-dollar infrastructure plan look like-- use a pile of money to get companies like Transurban to buy and run a bunch of US infrastructure.) (It is also a good analogy for the whole argument about net neutrality.)

Private enterprise and the free market do not-- can not-- value all customers equally. Some customers are "worth" extra attention and service, and some customers (poor customers, customers who can't pay to make themselves worth the company's while) are "worth" little or no service at all.

If we intend to hold onto the value that there are some services that ALL Americans deserve, we cannot privatize those very services. If we want to say that America is a country where we declare that some people just don't deserve anything-- well, then, we need to have some hard conversations about what that means to our national and personal character.

The DeVos in the Details

The United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (yes, HELP has apparently taken a position on the Oxford comma) has a basic form that executive branch nominees have to fill out. The nice folks at Politico are hosting an on-line copy of the 23-page public portion of that paperwork as filled out by USED Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos (thanks, Jennifer Berkshire). So even though we've all been digging after DeVos and examining the leaves in her high-priced tea, this is an opportunity that cannot be passed up. What does her job application for the post of Secretary of Education tell us?

DeVos and I would have been in the same classes in high school if I had gone to an exclusive private Christian school (for exclusive private Christians). She attended Calvin College (a private Christian liberal arts college in Grand Rapids) from the fall of 1975 until graduation in 1979.

Employment

I've accused DeVos of never working a day in her life. Turns out I'm a little bit wrong on that count. DeVos held down two jobs in college. First (January '76) came a job at Gantos, a Grand Rapids retailer specializing in "private label and name brand apparel." Then in May of '76, she added a third shift at the visor factory operated by Prince Corporation, the auto parts company founded by her father, Edgar Prince. She kept both till February of her senior year.

After that, she worked for Amway as a marketing analyst until November of '82, also spending most of '82 as an Amway Independent Business Owner and a Color One Consultant. She stayed with Color One until January of '84, which was the same year that Richard DeVos was promoted to Amway vice-president.

Lining any of this up against any personal milestones turns out to be a challenge-- I cannot find any statement about the DeVos-Prince wedding more specific that "in the early 80s." Nor is it clear when, exactly, the four children were born. Youngest Ryan appears to have graduated from college in 2013. Oldest son Rick was a self-described "visionary" at the age of twenty-one in 2003. [Update: According to the NYT, they married in 1979, so, right after she graduated from college.]

At any rate, Betsy was out of the workforce until 1989, when she helped launch the Windquest Group. From there on, her career is a list of directorships of various corporate money-managing and investment entities. She also has held honorary/advisory positions with the Michigan Council of Arts and Cultural Affairs, The Kennedy Center, and the Library of Congress Trust Fund.

Awards and Memberships

DeVos has been handed oodles of awards, starting with a Travis City Chamber of Commerce Athena Award (a business excellence award for the ladies), some more chamber and business awards, some historical preservation awards, and then, more recently, some awards like the 2014 William F. Buckley Jr. Prize for Leadership in Supporting Liberty and Leadership in Political Thought and a whopping four awards in 2016, including the Michigan Information Research Service Political Figure of the Year.

Memberships

DeVos has belonged to a wide variety of groups. Three yacht clubs and three country clubs. The Windsor Club ("the premier private business and social Club in Windsor and Essex County," where you can "dine in elegance" and "impress everyone"). The Detroit Athletic Club ("Before the era of country clubs and long before the Civil Right's Revolution opened opportunities for women, there were exclusive clubs in most cities where powerful men met to discussion deals, finances and politics"). Some business groups. She's a long-time member of the advisory council for the Potters House School, the institution she cites for sparking her edu-reformster fervor. And, oh, that fervor.

DeVos's edu-poli-reformster groups include: the Education Freedom Fund, GLEP Education Fund, Great Lakes Education Foundation, Kids Hope USA, Advocates for School Choice, All Children Matter Inc., Alliance for School Choice, American Federation for Children, Foundation for Excellence in Education (the Jeb Bush group), Excellence in Education in Action, The Philanthropy Roundtable, the American Enterprise Institute, Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation, and American Opportunity Alliance.

It's an impressive list, a sign of just how invested in reformsterism DeVos is. It's one more reminder just how little investment she has in the public school system she's about to take responsibility for.

Political Activity

DeVos was sent to her first Michigan GOP convention in 1980, when she was just a twenty-two year old heiress. She scored her first national GOP convention gig as an alternate in 1984. She has never not been involved in the GOP's business, including two state chairperson gigs-- and those are elected. The GOP in Michigan likes her just fine, and she has been active in the party her whole adult life.

Political Contibutions

Holy shniekies. Nine and a half pages, at about 47 items per page. So around 450. Did I mention that this list is for the last five years only?

DeVos has spread her money far and wide. Let me just hit some alphabetical highlights so you can see just how far:

AFC Action Fund for Pennsylvania-- $15,000 (2014)
Alabama Federation for Children-- total of $150,000 (2014, 2016)
Allen West for Congress-- $1,000 (2012)
Altipac (the PAC arm of Amway's parent company)-- $15,000 (2014-2016)
American Federation for Children-- grand total of $1,070,000 (2012, 2014-2016)
Arkansas Federation for Children Action Fund-- $25,000 (2016)
Bennet for Indiana-- $5,000 (2012)
Bryan Holloway for NC House-- $750 (2012)
Carly for President-- $2,700 (2015)
Citizens for Rauner, Inc-- $1,000 (2014)
Conservative Solutions-- $100,000 (2016)
Deal for Governor, Inc-- $1,000 (2014)
Eric Holcombe for Governor of Indiana-- $10,000 (2016)
Friends of Scott Walker-- $10,000 (2013)
GLEP-- $235,000 (2012, 2013)
Great Lakes Education Project-- $100,000 (2015,2016)
House Republican Campaign Committee-- $320,000 (2012-2016)
Jeb 2016-- $2,700 (2015)
Jindal for President-- $2,700 (2015)
John McCain for Senate-- $1,000 (2016)
Joni for Iowa-- $2,600 (2014)
Julie Killian for NY State Senate-- $500 (2016)
Kasich for America-- $2,700 (2015)
Liz Cheney for Congress-- $1,350 (2016)
Louisiana Federation for Children-- $100,000 (2015)
Marco Rubio for President-- $2,700 (2015)
Marco Rubio for Senate-- $5,400 (2016)
McCrory for Governor-- $4,000 (2012)
Michigan Chamber PAC-- $30,000 (2012-2016)
Michigan Republican Party-- $652,000 (2012-2016)
Missouri Republican Party-- $10,000 (2016)
Nevada Federation for Children PAC-- $55,000 (2016)
New Hampshire for Scott Brown-- $5,200 (2014)
New Mexico Republican Party-- $5,000 (2016)
Pam Bondi (yes, that one) for Attorney General-- $500 (2013)
Republican Governor's Association-- $125,000 (2012-2016)
Republican Party of Florida-- $10,000 (2016)
Romney for President-- $5,000 (2012)
Sean Bradley for Denver City Council-- $500 (2015)
Senate Leadership Fund-- $300,000 (2016)
Steve Daines for Montana-- $5,200 (2014)
Tennessee Federation for Children PAC-- $115,000 (2014)
Weiser for U of M Regent-- $10,200 (2014, 2016)
Wisconsin Federation for Children-- $45,000 (2014,2016)
Young Guns for Congress-- $227 (2012)

This is just the tip of the iceberg-- particularly because this is only her personal giving, and not an account of family giving, or a track of all the DeVos-backed groups that function as arms of the family's political empire. With a few free days, you could track every name on the large list showing DeVos supporting everything from all the GOP Presidential contenders EXCEPT her new BFFs and patrons, Pence and Herr Trump, down to a guy running for county sheriff. Betsy's money is very, very busy.

Publications

A whole lot of letters to the editor and opinion columns, as well as one press release. That's it. You may have imagined that a Secretary of Education might have some even-slightly-scholarly publications or articles or plain old white papers, but no. Letters to the editor will cover it, thanks.

Conflicts of Interest

The 'supplemental" portion of the questionnaire includes some open-ended questions, like asking the applicant to list any business dealings or investments or other stuff that might cause a conflict ofm interest, and if so, what do you plan to do about it?

DeVos replies that she will check with the ethics office and file a Form 278 to see if there are any such conflicts. We will reportedly have to wait to see whether Trump's cabinet picks declare these conflicts before or after they are confirmed. You know-- whatever's convenient for them.

The next question asks, "How will you resolve any such conflicts of interest." DeVos, like a good student who has been trained on how to answer these sorts of questions by recycling the prompt, replies "I will resolve any potential conflicts of interest that arise during the course of my service..." and the sentence rambles on a bit, but never arrives at the how. DeVos will resolve her conflicts by resolving her conflicts. Are we clear on that?

Then we get to the "you have to be an idiot to answer these wrong" section, where she is asked such stumpers as "Will you show up to be grilled by the Senate?" and she says yes, which I suppose, given the current future state of the Executive branch, is not a given, no matter how obvious it may seem.

Also, she indicates that yes, she will stop being employed by the family business, and yes, she does intend to return to the family business when she's done in DC but, no, nobody at the family business has "promised" her a job when she gets back, which I suppose is strictly true-- her husband may very well say in four (please, God) years, "Sorry, honey, but I decided to hire another person to serve as my life and business partner." So this line of questions is a little silly. But we can get sillier.

Lobbying

DeVos also swears that she has "never been registered as a state or federal lobbyist" and I suppose that is technically true, as you don't need to be a registered lobbyist when it's your own money you're throwing around with the expectation of changing how the government works. DeVos has done nothing her whole adult life except be a lobbyist, but she still falls outside the specific definition and so we can continue with the same sort of unvarnished swamp-steeped baloney that Trump lied about getting rid of.

There's more to dig through, particularly in the long list of contributees. There are no surprises here, but we do get one more piece of the DeVos picture, a few more details, a few more reasons that she would make a lousy Secretary of Education.