National Coalition Concerned About DeVos Grows & Receives Major Coverage

Do not forget to contact the U.S. Senators on the HELP Committee (Health, Labor, Education, and Pensions)! Betsy DeVos’ rescheduled conformation hearing takes place tomorrow, January 17th at 5 PM EST with coverage available on C-SPAN.

Since that hearing was postponed, the national coalition letter’s list of signatures has rapidly grown to include 15 national groups and publications and 61 state level organizations and experts from 28 states.

It has also received national coverage from Dr. Susan Berry at Breitbart News which extensively quoted Dr. Effrem’s summary of the letter as follows:

1) From all the evidence we can find, her statement when she was appointed on November 23^rd was her very first against Common Core. Her statements and record via organizations that she has founded, funded, chaired, or on whose boards she has served and her political contributions have all been in support of Common Core and pro-Common Core candidates. Her statement and her interview with Donald Trump focused on “higher standards” which is a euphemism for Common Core, even though there is abundant evidence that the Common Core standards are anything but high.

2) Her American Federation for Children group has been strongly in support of state voucher laws in Indiana and Louisiana or federal Title I portability that imposes or would impose Common Core on private schools via the federally mandated state assessments. The education savings accounts that she touts could well place government regulations on home schooling for “accountability” purposes.

3) Although a strong supporter of charter schools, it appears she has never financially supported classical charter schools like the Hillsdale model in her own home state, only charters that require the teaching and testing of Common Core.

4) The Philanthropy Roundtable that she chaired until her appointment put out a report that is strongly in favor of extensive data mining of children without transparency of what data is collected and who receives it or parental consent and never mentions the word “privacy.”

5) We are also concerned about continued expansion of invasive, subjective social emotional learning programs at the federal level and need to know her position on those.

Additionally,  Sunshine State News, a major statewide news and political website also discussed the nomination and hearing. Allison Neilsen clearly explained parent groups’ concerns quoting Dr. Effrem as executive director of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition:

Other groups have suggested DeVos’ views and Trump’s campaign promises don’t match up, specifically on the controversial Common Core State Standards.

“Her statements saying that she opposes Common Core are really new [and came out] basically the day she was appointed,” Education Liberty Watch president and Florida Stop Common Core executive director Karen Effrem told Sunshine State News Wednesday. “Her record and the record of the organizations she founded, funded or chaired is strongly pro-Common Core and that’s a real concern given President-elect Trump’s promise to get rid of Common Core.”

Effrem told SSN she hoped committee members would pose questions to DeVos, pushing her to lighten the federal footprint in the country’s classrooms.

“I would hope she would vastly scale back federal control over states in education,” Effrem explained.

While DeVos wasn’t Effrem’s first choice for Ed Secretary, she said she hoped DeVos would team up with Trump to make good on his promise to abolish Common Core.

“Compared to some of the other people Trump could have chosen, I’m greatly disappointed, but I have to trust that he will keep an eye on her and make sure that she fulfills the promises that he made on the campaign trail,” Effrem said.

Thank you for your support and work to give us Education for a FREE Nation!

UPDATE: Hearing Delayed! National Parent Coalition Sends Senate Questions About DeVos Record on Standards, Privacy, Etc.

 

Breitbart Covers DeVos Funding of Allegedly Independent Education News Site

Dr. Susan Berry at Breitbart covers more in-depth the influence of the DeVos fortune in promoting education news, Common Core, and social emotional learning which we described in our last post about the debate over SEL between Allison Crean Davis whose employer works with a number of DeVos-related entities and whose article was published on T74, the DeVos funded website:

The education reform website founded by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown is supporting Donald Trump’s education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos with the disclaimer that DeVos’ family foundation provides funding for the site.

Education Week writer Mark Walsh recently observed DeVos “has a friend” in Brown, who founded education news site The 74. He adds DeVos’ selection puts Brown in “an awkward position” in that The 74 is advertised as an independent education news site. Brown herself, however, advocates for school choice and charter schools – exactly the main causes DeVos espouses.

The disclaimer on Brown’s site reads as follows:

The Dick & Betsy DeVos Family Foundation provides funding to The 74, and the site’s Editor-in-Chief, Campbell Brown, sits on the American Federation for Children’s board of directors, which was formerly chaired by Betsy DeVos. Brown played no part in the reporting or editing of this article. The American Federation for Children also sponsored The 74’s 2015 New Hampshire education summit.

In a recent column at The 74, Brown writes:

Social media attacks aren’t famous for accuracy, but it’s a pity that Betsy DeVos has been so misleadingly caricatured since Donald Trump asked her to serve as secretary of education last week.

Not just because she’s a friend. Also because her attackers needlessly reopen late-NCLB fault lines and deepen the clamor that follows Trump everywhere.

Brown adds that DeVos will work hard at “pushing to improve whatever model is working — traditional or charter or voucher or something we haven’t yet imagined.”

Berry also notes that Campbell Brown defended close DeVos friend and major Common Core proponent Jeb Bush. She then goes on to discuss the above-mentioned SEL debate by Common Core defender Davis:

However, in another recent article at The 74, Allison Crean Davis, a senior advisor at Bellwether Education Partners, bemoans, “Promising, well-intended initiatives, like the Common Core Standards, burn and struggle to survive even before there is a shared understanding of their potential, much less evidence of their impact.”

Davis continues in support as well of the integration of social emotional learning (SEL) into schools and criticizes Federalist writers Jane Robbins and Karen Effrem for their warning about the dangers of including psychological learning as part of the curriculum children are exposed to at school.

Davis writes:

This article is the journalistic equivalent of yelling “fire” in a theater, designed to have folks crawling across the floor to the nearest exit. It’s as if the authors are saying: Don’t think. There’s danger. Escape! To which I say: Calm down. Harness one of the “subjective” social emotional skills in question, self-management. Instead of panicking, work to understand the rationale behind the push for more social emotional learning in schools and how the still-emerging science presents some limits to the work.

Characterizing the inclusion of SEL into curriculum as another “march of science,” Davis encourages the “exploration of the value of social emotional characteristics in schools.”

Robbins and Effrem, who assert the teaching of social and emotional qualities belongs not to the government, but firmly to parents who may be assisted by faith communities, respond:

Davis is firmly in the “government” camp. (So are the pro-Common Core and pro-SEL organizations working with her employer, Bellwether Education Partners, such as the Philanthropy Roundtable—chaired by Betsy DeVos—the Gates Foundation, and Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd.) Her article mentions parents only once, in connection with paraphrasing and dismissing our arguments. Instead, she emphasizes the need to focus on “science” uber alles.

Berry concludes by quoting Jane Robbins who accurately describes the way elitists like DeVos and Jeb Bush work to have their way in education policy:

“Jeb Bush and his ideological compatriots, including DeVos, advance what could be called a ‘government-foundation cartel’ model of educational policy-making,” she writes. “Private foundations funded by wealthy individuals (who themselves may be dilettantes with no real experience in education) contribute ideas, and frequently personnel, to the government to achieve their policy goals.”

While Robbins notes Congress or state lawmakers may rely on “research” funded by such foundations to make policy decisions, she also observes that often the actual decisions are made by the administrative state, i.e., unelected federal and state executive agencies. This state of affairs explains why so many parents and citizens want to see the U.S. Department of Education eliminated.

Please read the whole article – Former CNN Anchor’s Education Site Funded by Betsy DeVos Family Foundation and share!

DeVos & Bush Engage in “High Standards” Snake Oil Sales

Karen R. Effrem, MD – President

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Michigan billionaire; Republican mega-donor, and school choice advocate Betsy DeVos as his Secretary of Education. The corporate, big government Republican establishment, such as Jeb Bush, his Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, as well as groups that have received her large contributions, are thrilled with her appointment. Key education freedom leaders like Frank Cannon, president of the American Principles Project who called her a “very Jeb-like pick”; Joy Pullman, managing editor of The Federalist; and grassroots parent anti-Common Core groups in Michigan, Oklahoma, Florida, and around the nation are justifiably concerned.

Understanding her future boss’ promise to get rid of Common Core, as well as how fatal it was  to the presidential campaigns of her friend and fellow FEE board member, Jeb Bush, whom she supported, and others that Donald Trump beat, she put out a hastily constructed statement on Twitter and her website the day she was appointed, alleging her opposition to Common Core, stating that she is “not a supporter-period,” because it had turned into a “federalized boondoggle”:

Here are several important things to know about DeVos based on her rhetoric quoted above; her record as documented by the Stop Common Core in Michigan parents who have experienced her brand of education reform firsthand, and other sources.

1)      DeVos used Jeb Bush’s “high standards” euphemism for Common Core    Her mention of “high standards” in her website statement and the report of having discussed “higher national standards” in the Trump Transition Team readout of her November 19^th meeting with the president-elect, are identical to Jeb Bush’s efforts to deflect criticism of his Common Core support before and during his failed presidential campaign right down to the “Period.”:

This has all the believability of a multi-level marketing campaign selling educational snake oil. Bush readily admitted while campaigning for Rick Scott in 2014 that there was no major difference between Common Core and the rebranded Florida Standards:

Bush and DeVos have never been able to explain just exactly how Common Core standard may be considered “high” when they were untried; are not rigorous; not internationally benchmarked; developmentally inappropriate, etc.

And her concept of “high standards” with local control is a complete oxymoron. Whether these “higher national standards” are called Common Core or not, the federal government has no place whatsoever promoting national standards at the federal level or in the states. Yet, sadly, by use of the secretarial veto of state plans and federal requirements to have standards and tests comply with 11 different draconian federal laws, this is what has happened with Jeb Bush’s admitted involvement in ESSA. If and until the USED is closed or scaled back and or ESSA is repealed, if she believes in local control, she must approve the state plans.

2)      Betsy DeVos has no record of Common Core opposition. The website statement and tweet the day she was appointed were the first indications of being against Common Core ever documented. In fact, she has been described as supporting Common Core by Tonya Allen of the Skillman Foundation in the Detroit News. There is absolutely no record of her or any of the three major organizations that she has founded, chaired or still chairs, and funds The Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), The American Federation for Children (AFC), and the Philanthropy Roundtable (PR) ever having opposed Common Core. She never reached out to, and in fact, steadfastly refused to meet with or assist Stop Common Core in Michigan in any way. The GLEP executive director even threatened these parents with legal action.

3) The organizations that she ran, not just “worked with,”  were intensely pro-Common Core:

Actively worked to block a bill that would have repealed and replaced Michigan’s Common Core standards with the Massachusetts standards, arguably the best in the nation (GLEP)

Actively lobbied for continued implementation of Common Core in Michigan (GLEP)

Financially supported pro-Common Core candidates in Michigan (GLEP)

Threatened the grassroots parents’ organization Stop Common Core in Michigan with legal action for showing the clear link between GLEP endorsement and Common Core support (GLEP)

Funded Alabama pro-Common Core state school board candidates via the Alabama affiliate of AFC

4) Betsy DeVos personally lauded, and AFC strongly supported, and funded the 2011 Indiana law signed by Mitch Daniels that imposes Common Core on private voucher schools via the tests. The law requires voucher recipient schools to administer the public school Common Core-aligned tests without the option of choosing a nationally norm-referenced test (sec. 4.7) and submit to the grading system based on those same tests.  The tests determine what is taught. Indiana still has Common Core via the infamous rebrand perpetrated by VP-elect Mike Pence and “is the second-worst in the country on infringing on private school autonomy” according to the Center for Education Reform because of that and other onerous requirements. Indiana’s law received an F grade on the Education Liberty Watch School Choice Freedom Grading Scale.

5) DeVos and AFC are strong supporters of federal Title I portability.  This program would require the same public school, Common Core tests and likely, the rest of draconian and unconstitutional federal regulations for private schools as are currently imposed on public schools. This would eliminate them as a real “choice”  and would expand the “federalized boondoggle” she says she opposes. Jeb Bush recommended this same kind of program requiring the state tests for Mitt Romney in 2012 (p.24).

6)      DeVos seems to favor highly regulated Common Core-aligned charter schools Although charter schools are public schools usually requiring the public school Common Core tests, there are some that are trying to blaze a trail of independence. Hillsdale College in DeVos’ home state of Michigan is nationally renowned for its classical and constitutional teaching and for not taking federal funding.  It has also developed non-Common Core classical charter schools.  Hillsdale President Dr. Larry Arnn says, “…we only put those charter schools in states where the charter law enables the independence of the school under a local board to run the school as they please.”

Although there are token mentions of the Hillsdale programs on various of her organization websites, that style of charter school is not favored by her. The Philanthropy Roundtable group that DeVos chaired until her appointment published a report on charter schools, but did not once mention the Hillsdale program. There is no evidence that her family foundation has made a single donation to Hillsdale College, including to its charter program. She should be asked why she seems to want all charter schools in Michigan and elsewhere to only teach Common Core aligned standards, curriculum and use those tests. How is that advancing any real parental choice in education?

7)      The DeVos organizations seem very cavalier about student privacy – The Philanthropy Roundtable, which she chaired until her appointment, published a report called Blended Learning: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Supporting Tech-assisted Teaching (analyzed HERE) that lauds the Dream Box software that “records 50,000 data points per student per hour” and does not contain a single use of the words “privacy,” “consent,” “transparency” [as in who receives that data and how software algorithms crunch that data to make life changing decision for children]. The report also prominently mentions Knewton, whose CEO bragged about collecting “5-10 million data points per user per day.” Blended learning is the same as Competency Based Education with its teaching, invasive data mining, and psychological profiling by machine that we have warned about .

It is in stark contrast to another Trump promise on the campaign trail to protect student privacy. When asked if he would close the FERPA loophole opened by the Obama administration allowing sensitive data to be shared widely without consent, he said:

Whose philosophy will prevail?

8)      The DeVos-led (until recently) PR group also supports expanding invasive, subjective social emotional learning The PR’s national conference had a breakout session titled: Enabling Student Success: How Social-Emotional Learning Can Impact Schools. The recap had no discussion of privacy,freedom of conscience, or indoctrination concerns. It called parents merely “assets” in student learning. The T74, a pro-Common Core education blog funded by the DeVos FamilyFoundation carried a post attacking the Federalist article written by Jane Robbins and myself as the “journalistic equivalent of yelling ‘fire’ in a theater” without substantively answering our concerns. The author works at Bellwether Education Partners, whose partners include (surprise, surprise) DeVos’ PR, Bush’s FEE, and the Gates Foundation, all major supporters of Common Core and of SEL.

None of this constitutes “draining the swamp” in education.  American Principles Project senior fellow Jane Robbins said it very well in her excellent piece, Jeb’s Revenge: