CURMUDGUCATION: Plutocrat Romney Endorses DeVos

The slightly-cranky voice navigating the world of educational “reform” while trying to still pursue the mission of providing quality education.

Source: CURMUDGUCATION: Plutocrat Romney Endorses DeVos

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. 

Posted by Peter Greene at Sunday, January 08, 2017

Stenographers to Power: MLive and the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation

Stenographers to Power: MLive and the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation
by Jeff Smith (GRIID)
Yesterday, MLive ran an interesting piece about the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation. I say interesting, because the MLive reported frames the issue this way:9082_npiccover_display

There’s no question Dick and Betsy DeVos garner lots of attention — and criticism — for their outsized political donations. But those are pocket change compared to their charitable contributions, which add up to nearly $139 million over their lifetimes.

What the MLive reported has done is to someone separate the direct political campaign contributions from Dick and Betsy DeVos from the foundation giving, suggesting that their foundation giving is merely charitable and not political. In addition, the MLive reported then makes the claim that couple gives way more money that is charity-based, unlike the political contributions, which the writer refers to as “pocket change.”

Ultimately, the reporter from MLive, has either failed to understand the nature and function of foundations or they are compromised into protecting power, or maybe both.

As we have noted in previous postings… (read more of this post)

Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy

Yesterday, MLive ran an interesting piece about the Dick & Betsy DeVos Foundation.  I say interesting, because the MLive reporter frames the issue this way:

There’s no question Dick and Betsy DeVos garner lots of attention — and criticism — for their outsized political donations. But those are pocket change compared to their charitable contributions, which add up to nearly $139 million over their lifetimes.

What the MLive reporter has done is to somehow separate the direct political campaign contributions from Dick and Betsy DeVos from the foundation giving, suggesting that their foundation giving is merely charitable and not political. In addition, the MLive reporter then makes the claim that couple gives way more money that is charity-based, unlike the political contributions, which the writer refers to as “pocket change.”

Ultimately, the reporter from MLive, has either failed to understand the nature and function of foundations or they are…

View original post 717 more words

CURMUDGUCATION: Should Devos Make This Argument for Choice?

The slightly-cranky voice navigating the world of educational “reform” while trying to still pursue the mission of providing quality education.

Source: CURMUDGUCATION: Should Devos Make This Argument for Choice?

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.

Posted by Peter Greene at Tuesday, January 10, 2017