Trump’s Ed Sec Betsy DeVos has a School Choice hammer, so every education issue looks like a nail. And being a Trump cabinet member, the hammer is paramount, facts are optional. DeVos’s latest assertion: Our poor scores on international tests are because we don’t have enough school choice. Countries which have embraced choice are outperforming the U.S., she claims.
Her evidence? She didn’t give any, nor did her Education Department.
She can’t be talking about Chile. It adopted a universal voucher system, and that hasn’t gone well. She can’t mean Sweden, which went to a school choice model complete with vouchers and saw its international test scores drop. She certainly can’t be referring to Finland, the only European country whose international test scores regularly equal or surpass those of Asian countries. Finland doesn’t have anything like charter schools, and their few private schools follow the same curriculum as public schools. Meanwhile back in the U.S. of A., some of our highest scoring states, like Massachusetts and Connecticut, aren’t exactly poster children for school choice. They have charter schools but no voucher systems to speak of.
If school choice is the answer, Ms. DeVos, please tell us, what is the question?
Meanwhile on the legislative front, there’s plenty for educators to be upset about in the Republican tax bill. At the K-12 level, there’s the provision to remove the $250 deduction teachers can take for purchasing supplies for their classrooms. The federal tax deduction for state taxes is in danger, which will lead to less money in the state coffers and, most likely, less for schools. At the college level, making graduate students pay taxes on tuition wavers will add to the debt they amass in the process of getting a degree. And taxing private colleges’ endowments will lower their ability to give scholarships to low income students.
DeVos’s response? She’s “so encouraged” that Congress is working to fix “our nation’s broken tax system.” I guess she’s “encouraged” that her family’s wealth will be increased and she can pass every penny of it on to her children when she dies. As for her duties as the guardian of the country’s system of education . . . Isn’t it wonderful she gets to keep more of her billions and her heirs won’t have to pay an estate tax?
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 6, 2017.
Betsy Devos is the paradigm of the Rich in control of our “Democracy”.
We have developed, sadly and dangerously, into a “Democracy” that is controlled by powerful Financial Interests Groups, that are using their money to “buy” “Politicians” and, as a result, control the electoral process and government
The American Voter need to wake up and participate in the electoral process, at all levels of Government; using their notion of what is in the best interests of all US Citizens and their Understanding of our Constitutionally Protected Liberties; that the primary focus of Government is the development of Citizens primarily through Public Education and Health Care; both should be provided at Public Expense and NOT through a “Free Market, Profit Based Economic System” where maximizing Profit and Salaries are the primary motivations and not First Rate Systems of Public Education and Health Care!
The question is: as a car driving toward a precipice; are we at the fulcrum or have we moved beyond?
Kleptocracy — a government with corrupt leaders who use their power to exploit the people and natural resources to extend their personal wealth and power.
Plutocracy — a government where a small minority of wealthiest citizens rule.
Welcome to America’s nightmare — a Kleptoplutocracy, where a small minority of the wealthiest citizens personally or through the use of the corrupted political puppets they control exploit the rule of law, the Constitution, the people and virtually every American institution to extend their wealth, power and influence, even at the risk of starting regional international conflicts and world war.
Tin foil hats anyone?
Yes, David: keep focusing on Betsy De Vos. You certainly would not want to focus on what is going on at Booth Fickett or what has gone on at Secrist or Utterback or Doolen because then the attempt to deny people the ability to transfer their public per-pupil out of some of our mismanaged, increasingly dangerous local schools might look like what it actually is: bad public policy, damaging to our community at large and unfair to the families living within the catchment zones of these schools.
The fact that often people dislike the truth more than they like it does not make it any less true.
Questions for those who think it is appropriate to lock students whose families have low income levels into malfunctioning schools, while allowing families with higher income levels to attend school wherever they please:
Are you well informed about conditions in TUSD schools?
If you are well-informed, what are you doing to ask for better governance and administration in TUSD?
Attending every Board meeting?
Speaking regularly in the Call to the Audience?
Organizing demonstrations around, for example, issues relating to substitute teacher compensation and the proper use of 301 pay?
Donating to and volunteering for candidates who can bring about positive change on the Board?
Volunteering in the schools?
Serving as a community rep on your local schools Site Council?
If you answered No to any of the above, can you, in good conscience, deny other peoples children the right to transfer their per-pupil funding out of the troubled schools you refuse to devote advocacy energy to improving, schools that are not meeting their educational needs?
When citizens dont perform their proper roles in a democratically controlled school district, it malfunctions. When it malfunctions, people have to be allowed to exit. There should not be an economic penalty against families who recognize when an institution is failing and get their children out. That is responsible behavior, and it should be rewarded, not penalized.
Supporters of Public Schools: you continue to support something that is a good idea in theory, but decade after decade, you have not been able to get it to deliver good services in practice. We have long since passed the point where your inability to improve the institutions you support (in theory, but not in citizen-advocacy practice) has undermined the publics ability to have confidence in your policy preferences.
My comments are always way too long, way too boring and chock full of misinformation. I can’t help but point out that David Safier is always wrong, even though he backs up what he says with actual facts. Gaw…I can’t stand that.
(Plus, I always type a paragraph or two that reside within parentheses.)
I should focus on more important things, but I can’t help myself.
Please help me! I have obvious mental issues.
I see that I was right in a previous comment when I predicted that TW will not be able to keep the thugs out of its comment streams. Is TWs inability to eliminate bad behavior, insults and aggressions here somehow related to the Democratic Partys inability to keep the schools it would like to retain their monopoly on the use of public funds from descending into chaos? Its an interesting question.
http://tucson.com/news/local/tusd-pours-resources-into-east-side-school-in-effort-to/article_d3d0b851-48ac-5b35-8de9-1d7d3e0c6776.html
http://tucson.com/news/local/education/discipline-problems-at-secrist-trigger-special-tusd-task-force/article_2c7cfee0-2dec-5e6c-8298-743298b3abf2.html
Too bad that they can’t keep the thuggish trolls out.
I could actually read an article without being exposed to a certain person’s rants that are usually twice as long as the article itself.
By the way, I’m not a democrat. Just a person who dislikes the way you present your opinion. Big difference there bub.
It doesnt matter whether or not YOU are a Democrat, troll. What matters are the editorial policies of this Democratic-party-policy-promoting rag and whether those policies are enforced. What matters in the schools is whether there are sane disciplinary policies and whether they are enforced so that LEARNING and not violence, disruption, and bullying can take place. Is the lack of ability to have appropriate policies and enforce them a system wide problem for Southern Arizona Dems, in publications, in the school systems for which they want to maintain a monopoly on the use of public funds, and elsewhere? You bet. Not all Dems everywhere are this way, but these are. Why this is the case is interesting and a lot could be said about it, but I wouldnt want to bore you any further so I wont elaborate.
That’s amusing.
You are calling me a troll?
So, now I am the person who attacks Mr. Safier anytime he posts something?
Trolling is as trolling does.
Learn what a troll is, what they do and what they’re all about… before you leave enough commentary to cover the article posted and then some.
Go back to ADI bitch. They love people like you.
Ive asked myself why I keep commenting here. Ive been doing it for four years. It does get kind of tedious because David, clever and eloquent as he often is, tends to keep recycling the same themes.
I suppose I keep doing it because I really, REALLY would like to hear a good counter argument to the points I make, one that I might actually find convincing. Somehow you are a long winded fuck doesnt do it. And you are mentally ill doesnt do it either. Go back to ADI bitch certainly doesnt do it.
Guess Ill have to keep commenting in the hopes that one of these days, months, years, I might read something here that will persuade me there is such a thing as EFFECTIVE citizen advocacy in Southern Arizona and the public district system can actually be made to work here as well as it did in the blue state where I grew up.
I ask myself why you keep commenting here also. Hopefully, your commenting days are coming to a close. Unless, of course, you can be more civil about how you do it.
If you don’t like David’s theme recycling, then quit reading. If you think you can do better, get a job like he has or one similar to his. Otherwise, you should STFU.
My guess is that you were/are an educator that feels like you got burned somewhere along the way. You come across as being butt hurt. Your posts have a very self conscious and pathetic undertone to them. It doesn’t matter how many different names you post under, you are instantly recognizable.
Your arrogant, rude, snide, condescending and holier than thou remarks have no place in what should be civilized conversation and/or debate. If you can’t play nice with others, head over to a corner and play with yourself.
This will be my last reply in this stream because I think this dialogue has long since done its work in illustrating the points I’ve been trying to make.
In closing, I note that Tucson Weekly’s comments policy states that the following will be removed by their administrator:
“Personal attacks, insults, or threatening language.” It states, “Name-calling will not be tolerated.”
https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/CommentsPolicy/Page
Calling someone mentally ill is a personal attack and an insult. Using the term bitch is name calling, and a nasty form of it at that. And now we have, “Hopefully, your commenting days are coming to a close.”? What is that? Threatening language?
Why has Tucson Weekly not removed the posts in this stream that violate its policies? Could it be because people can’t reasonably expect civil discourse to be protected here, by this crowd, any more than they can reasonably expect their children to be protected from injury and abuse in a district like what TUSD has become? I hope not, but my doubts only increase every time another abusive reply is added and it remains up, un-deleted by those who are the policy enforcers at Tucson Weekly.
How does the sentence “Hopefully, your commenting days are coming to a close” constitute as a threat? There’s nothing hidden in that sentence, the meaning is just as it is presented…a hope. I’m allowed to have hopes and dreams, right? You were really stretching when you came up with that one.
You never cease to amuse me. You keep on citing the rules yet you break one of them with practically every tome you post. My guess is that you’re not reading the policy all the way to the very end or you feel as if you’re above it all. If you go back and read the policy, you might notice that the last rule regarding comment removal states: “Comments that harass the reporters and newspaper staff.” It’s true! I’m not making this stuff up. I actually copied and pasted all those words between the quotation marks to prove it. I promise you that I did not add, alter or change any words.
Because of this rule which you choose to constantly ignore, you have exposed yourself as a hypocrite. By the way, that’s not name calling, nor is it a threat; it’s a cold hard fact. You need to learn how to play nice and follow the rules which you expect others to follow. If you heed this sage advice, you may actually convince those who abhor your arrogant and long-winded rants to consider the information you provide as being sensible. Until then, you lose.
And…you still lose.
Amazing how you don’t come back to comment when you know you’ve been beat.