5 ways Snyder’s education budget differs from House, Senate plans | MLive.com

Posted on by Jeffrey L "Jeff" Salisbury

The House, Senate proposals don’t include Snyder’s proposed cut to cyber charter schools

Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed 20 percent funding cut for cyber charter schools – as well as additional $50 per pupil for high school students – were not included in budget recommendations unveiled this week by subcommittees in the Michigan Legislature.

The proposed budgets, approved by appropriations subcommittees in the state House and Senate, make slight tweaks to Snyder’s recommendations in some areas but deviate significantly in other parts of the budget.

The budgets are far from final at this point. They now move to the full appropriations committees in both chambers – where more debate is likely – before going to the House and Senate floor for final approval.

Here’s a look at how the budgets are shaping up thus far:

READ MORE HERE: 5 ways Snyder’s education budget differs from House, Senate plans | MLive.com

CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos: Mom With An Axe

Posted on by Jeffrey L "Jeff" Salisbury

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

DeVos: Mom With An Axe

This week Education Secretary Betsy DeVos stopped by Brookings to help them help her plug choice. The main purpose of the event was to roll out a new report (The 2016 Education Choice and Competition Index), but the main outcome of the event was that DeVos said some truly extraordinary stuff. First, she delivered some prepared remarks, but then she sat down for some Q & A with Russ Whitehurst (Brookings) and that’s when some kind of amazing stuff just kind of fell out of her mouth.

You can watch all of it here, though I’m not sure I recommend it. While Arne Duncan specialized in a goofy grin, like a ten-year-old boy who had snuck into a strip club and new he was doing something that might be considered either naughty or awesome, and yet he himself didn’t quite get it, DeVos leans more towards a church lady smirk, like it amuses her to imagine that all those Lessers are just having fits that she is this amazing. It is the look for which “supercilious” was coined, and it’s not a good look on anyone, let alone a starched white heiress. Her Trump-approved minder should really help her with that.

Prepared Remarks

These include some standard DeVosisms, leading right in by noting that she is passionate about “increasing education options for parents and students” which she characterizes as a “fundamental right.”

Her views about this were shaped “early on” in her time as a mother. The USED transcript omits the next part, but if we go to the tape, we see that here she tells the story of her relationship with the Potters House, a private Christian school recently profiled by Rebecca Klein. She and her husband sent a son there, volunteer there, and throw a lot of money at the place. Her experience, she says, led her to three conclusions.

First, parents know what’s best for their kids. That will, further down the page, lead to a problem for the DeVosian view– what are we to make of all the parents who choose, prefer, and support public schools?

Second, good teachers know what’s best for their students. DeVos likes “good teachers,” but I am beginning to wonder if she means “morally upright teachers” instead of “professionally accomplished teachers.” She also hints here at something I’ve caught a whiff of before– that choice provides teachers with super-awesome places to work where they can be part of an upright school that allows them to work long hours for less pay. Hooray.

Third, state and local leaders should be in charge, not the feds. I don’t disagree with this, but my love of local control is tempered by the knowledge that in some places, “local control” means “racist and unequal.” Consider the “failure factories” created in Pinellas County, Florida, or the segregation academies still running. So, local control might not be the absolute answer.

Tear down that wall. And that one, too.

DeVos underlines her commitment to choice, but she also underlines her commitment to children and families, not in buildings or institutions. It’s a central theme of hers, and I wonder if it’s a side-effect of life-long wealth– if you always have the clout and money to stand up for yourself, does it seem inconceivable that some people without power and money need to have institutions to stand up for them? Or is this a religion thing, a desire to see all institutions torn down except the church? Whatever the case, DeVos once again lets her anti-institution (and by extension, anti-government) flag fly. Institutions also provide places for people to congregate and rebel and disagree with the Powers That Be and otherwise misbehave. Let’s chop them all down.

She doesn’t favor any one choice mechanism, but she does want to hit the old note about putting children’s needs above adult political concerns, which is a handy way of dismissing virtually any opposing voices. Teachers don’t express opinions about education because they are invested in teaching children– they’re just playing politics.

DeVos considers some specific cities that came up in the report, and her point seems to be that you need a good array of choices, and you need to make them accessible, and that includes a good application system. At no point does she suggest that oversight is needed to make sure that all the choices are actually any good.

Then she trots out Marilyn Rhames again. Rhames is one of Rick Hess’s cage-busting teachers. And she acknowledges a quote from the report– “There is no question that alternatives to the traditional school district model are destructive of the traditional school district model.”She disagrees. She believes that alternatives are constructive to education, students, parents, and teachers. And she absolutely refuses to distinguish between them, lumping all choices together, including virtual charters that have been universally shown to fail hard. But then, she’s not a numbers person.

An exceptionally bad analogy

DeVos now trots out taxis vs. Uber/Lyft as her example. It’s a tortured analogy– private transportation options are not a public good, a community school is not a hired driver, and Uber in particular has actually been pretty destructive of many things. And Uber picks its own customers! DeVos offers this example “from a different part of our daily lives,” as if the vast majority of folks in this country can’t afford either a taxi or a lyft, but instead depend on public transport like buses or metro systems, which is still easier than rural areas where none of those options are available at all. She also tosses Airbnb into the mix, which is kind of hilarious because I’m willing to bet that she’s never stayed at one in her life, and I will double that bet that she has never offered her own home as an Airbnb option. But she will use these poor analogies to propose that since we love choice in these areas, we should offer choice in schools.

She acknowledges that critics ask “often politely,” why not fix the schools we have? That’s true. We do ask that. Then she continues, “If only schools received more funding, they say, the schools could provide a better learning environment for those being left behind.” That’s not true. There are plenty of calls to fund schools completely or fairly. There are discussions about how money can best be spent. There are plenty of calls to turn the governance of local schools over to local communities. There are many many MANY discussions about programs and curriculum and ending those God-forsaken Big Standardized Tests. But I know few-if-any public school advocates whose position is, “Just give us more money.”

But Betsy has set up her preferred straw man, and now she will have at him. “But of course we’ve already tried that, and it’s proven not to work.” And she will prove it with those damn School Improvement Grants. This– this– is the Obama/Duncan legacy– a bad policy that, by its failure, has provided the perfect ammunition to discredit the whole idea of funding schools. Thanks, Obama.

DeVos wales away on SIG and asks, “At what point do we accept the fact that throwing money at the problem isn’t the solution,” as if anybody, anywhere, had suggested that throwing money at schools is the solution, although one does have to wonder why, then, she and her husband have thrown so many millions of dollars at the Potters House.

She’d like to change the culture around education– no more “us versus them” thinking, which is an interesting point of view for someone who has spent the last thirty years up to and including this one declaring war on public schools. But she doesn’t want to talk about statistics or systems– she wants to tell anecdotes about specific children who fit her preferred outcome. So we will get heartwarming stories about students “saved” by choice or “ruined” by public schools. I predict that the years ahead will provide many of these anecdotes. I also predict that the years ahead will not include anecdotes of charter fraud, voucher scams, students who were left abandoned when their choice school closed suddenly mid-year, or students who emerged from choice schools with no actual education. Her story today is about Michael, and she declares that even one more Michael is unacceptable, but I have a feeling we’re not going to hear about the Michael’s who are let down by choice schools.

Finally,

So I urge us to come together to embrace policies that actually empower parents and give kids an equal shot at the quality education they deserve. It is the right and just thing to do. 

As always, I wonder why we only want to give kids a “shot” at a quality education. Why not resolve to give them the actual quality education? But then, this closing line is really the first time we’ve brought up quality in the whole speech. Then DeVos brings it home with the True Believer invocation of what is “just and right.”

And now it gets interesting.

And now DeVos sits down with Whitehurst, pours him a glass of water he doesn’t really want as if we’re in her house, not his, and things become extraordinary, partly, it must be said, because Whitehurst asks her some really well-aimed questions.

What’s your metric?

Whitehurst asks how DeVos/Trump would like to be measured in the future?  What would “we did a good job” look like?

She re-iterates her idea of replacing institutions with a student-centric culture. Whitehurst pushes back– what exactly does that look like. How would we hold you accountable for that? Different funding mechanisms? Every parent gets to choose? Achievement is going to rise? At the end “I want some numbers” that tell me you got where you wanted to get.

Her measure is more choices. She believes the demand is there and it should be allowed to be cultivated. This is the part where DeVos says “I’m not a numbers person, not in the same way you are.” Just empower parents. As long as we’ve got that policy, she’s happy.

But what if it sucks.

Whitehurst wants to gently suggest that  a whole lot of choice could result in crappy education for a lot of students. Could she see, conceptually, “that a choice environment, implemented poorly. could have negative impacts on families.” And he almost has an interesting idea going, but then he restates it– could you struggle publicly with us over the dilemma of having choice, but academic outcomes are getting worse. And that’s what she jumps on, with this extraordinary statement:

Well, I’m not sure how they could get a lot worse on a nationwide basis than they are today.

Ah, there she is. Betsy “Public Schools Are a Dead End” DeVos. And she cites the continuing deterioration of PISA scores and NAEP scores and now Russ Whitehurst has to correct the Secretary of Education by pointing out that NAEP scores have risen dreamatically over the last twenty years. “It’s actually interesting that the Bush administration focused on reading,” not math, and the math got better and all DeVos takes away from any of that is that the federal top-down approach isn’t so great, chuckle chuckle.

So the Secretary of Education cannot imagine how public education can get any worse in this country (though she’s not a numbers person). Which means we have some huge disconnects operating here, because parents always know best, and lots of parents think pubic schools are actually pretty good, and yet they couldn’t get any worse. Yikes.

The players in the system

I have to tell you– I’m liking Whitehurst more and more. Now he winds up with the notion that ESSA, Trump and DeVos all seem lined up behind the devolution of power to the states and localities and his question– “Isn’t that the traditional status quo model?” Which– yes. Part of ed reform has been installing top-down power, so re-localizing it is in fact a return to the status quo. Okay, I like him less now that he includes the idea that school boards are elected by teachers unions.

Her response is predictable given her history. “We’ve seen” plenty of governors be really innovative, and she should have seen that because she’s certainly thrown enough money at getting people elected who see things her way. “Empowering states” to be “laboratories” of choice is where we’ll see headway made. IOW, now that we have better control of state governments, it should be okay to give them power again.

Federal role to play? “Highlighting” success and also something about states sitting back being satisfied with mediocre results. Wait– what?? Did she just suggest that the feds are going to push accountability on the states after all? No, the federal role will be informative rather than mandating. So, you know, fliers and reports and emails and stuff. But Whitehurst is going to follow up.

What about the happy states?

If the state is happy with how things are going, then parents are stuck. What then? Just the bully pulpit, or…?

State plan submission for ESSA will be a very “good and instructive process” and they kind of bob heads at each other like maybe they can tease out a string of words that really means something. But in that process, the department will have a chance to “comment to” what the state plans. So, the power of comments. So, nothing. This has always been the challenge I imagine she faces– she wants to keep the feds out of the process, but she knows just what she wants to see, and as the Trump administration fully grasps, if there are no consequences for breaking a rue, it’s not really a rule.

Does DeVos see turning down any state plans? She doesn’t know– it’s too early to say, and now she has her confident voice back. She knows this answer! But it’s at least possible to refuse a state that’s “complacent,” and this gets a nod. But when he asks if there will be “revise and resubmit” orders, she just says there will be opportunity for discussion.

Will the feds break choice?

Whitehurst, in his Jimmy Stewart stammering way, allows as how he’s just sort of compelled to ask about the budget. Which features huge education cuts, which will be covered by cutting programs, but also there’s the shifting of money to choice. He then references the USA Today op-ed by charter operators saying “Don’t slash the budget.” And remember that time that Obama maybe killed Common Core by top-downing it (note: not a thing that actually happened). Oh– it looks like a question is appearing over the horizon. If the feds throw their weight and tax dollars behind choice all top downy, will they hurt the charter/choice movement?

DeVos reminds us that the budget doesn’t actually exist yet, so there’s more sturm and drang to come before money actually appears. So, not going to answer the actual question. And Whitehurst lets her off by reminiscing about how Presidential budgets are aspirational.

Audience participation time

First up, Richard from the Century Foundation. He’s going to tak about segregation and opens by noting that it can get worse with choice, but “if properly engineered” it could “produce” a lot more diversity. He asks DeVos if she supports or opposes policies aimed at promoting diversity.

DeVos warms up slowly, starting with basically “diversity is good.” And then she references a report that shows that enough choices increases diversity. I’m not going to call the Secretary and alternative factifier, but this seems… unlikely? Then she works around to the Oaks school that she visited, which makes diversity a policy even though, somehow, that results in a school less diverse than the city it lives in.Now the sound is dropping out of the video, but DeVos manages to finally connect with this softball– yes, diversity is good and we would be in favor of it.

Our next question opens with the observation that the government has a roll in protecting citizens from defective products (like exploding cars). So how does the fed balance the desire to favor parent and child choice with a need to protect consumers from metaphorically exploding schools?

“That’s a really good question,” DeVos says, as her metaphorical hourglass icon spins. First measure of accountability? If parents choose it. “I would love to see evidence of schools attracting students solely on the promise of a raffle ticket or something.” Yes, as she has suggested before, DeVos believes that the market is never wrong, and if parents choose a school, it must be good. Parents (with information, though she doesn’t say what the information would be) is the “first, best” form of accountability. Having information about the school’s results transparent and available is the accountability we need. So, does she believe that choice school operators will never lie, or use very creative marketing?

This is another DeVosian mystery– the implication that public schools are operated by a bunch of lying liars, but charter and private school operators are somehow more virtuous? Or is the belief here that the Free Market somehow forces people to be honest or else they’ll be deselected. Does she believe that people won’t choose you if you’re a big fat liar, because I’m pretty sure DeVos is serving at the pleasure of the living embodiment, the walking proof that lying can actually be a great way to succeed in the Free Market.

That’s it!

Whitehurst tells the audience to stay seated until DeVos gets out “for security reasons.” She’s out, and Whitehurst is back to talking about his report.

DeVos’s priorities and assumptions are certainly becoming ever-clearer. She’s a Mom, and she’s got a big Axe, and she is going to chop the crap out of the failed terrible public school system and make kindling for a warm choice fire. Her actual knowledge is shallow and severely by her assumptions– unsurprising from someone who said at her hearing that she had not learned anything from her years of involvement in Michigan ed reform.

Sequel: Read here to see where Whitehurst himself thinks DeVos got it wrong-– particularly with that terrible Uber comparison.

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Source: CURMUDGUCATION: DeVos: Mom With An Axe

Creating A Quality Education: Making Michigan a ‘better place’ for ALL  K-12 public school students – By Bill Cobbs

Posted on by Jeffrey L "Jeff" Salisbury
Making Michigan a Better Place for Kids

Education is a fundamental building block for Michigan’s future. Investing in a quality k-12 education for our children is a moral imperative. The investment we make today will be the dividends we gain tomorrow.

Literacy Is Fundamental

Literacy is important to both our democracy and freedom as a nation. From all that I’ve read, one of the most important aspects of the slave trade was denying slaves the ability to read and write to maintain servitude. While slavery has ended, even to enjoy Freedom of the Press, we must be able to read what our journalists print.

Without literacy, we can’t study our nation’s history, to understand why our nation granted the freedoms we now enjoy. Without literacy, what remains is a dumbed down society plagued by the virus of cognitive dissonance eating away one by one, at our critical thinking, our attention span, and our very moral fiber. And here we are. Trump.

Today’s bondage may not be physical, but it is even more insidious. Children are being deprived of basic literacy both in our schools and in the home.

In educational policy, we are being drawn into the trap of privatization by “school of choice” marketing. This marketing is not for our benefit. Listen closely when a Governor says he is taking over academic control of your school, but he is not accountable for a quality education!

A Governor that would rather spend $35,000 to imprison an illiterate juvenile, than $10,000 to teach a child, has another agenda. Governor Snyder has been deaf to our cries, and out of touch with the components of good Governance.

Literacy is all the more difficult to achieve when the average charter school teacher has only one year of experience.

There are four steps to this immoral and unethical scheme to profit from the destabilization of our neighborhoods:

  1. Defunding neighborhood schools so they lack books, staff, and proper maintenance
  2. Labeling public schools which lack critical resources as “failing” to drive students away
  3. Closing the schools lacking critical resources
  4. Privatizing by giving away publicly funded community assets to for-profit charters

There was a time that brothers and sisters went to the same school, knew the same teachers, and were proud to root for the home team at high school football games. The viability of every neighborhood and its cultural institutions is important to literacy. When neighborhoods have safe, clean schools, people desire to put down roots and property values rise.

Conversely, destroying our neighborhood institutions creates crime and instability. It has been shown that closing schools and making children cross into unknown territories increased gang activity and gang membership in Detroit. Poor areas are easy victims because more families are renters, and these families have fewer connections to the neighborhood. Therefore, children who attend charters may have an even more difficult time forming stable positive relationships.

Yet, the opportunity to send our child to a charter school across town with a fancier name is so tempting; we may forget momentarily the impact on our property values when our neighborhood school is boarded up. Let’s remember, we are in this together. Destabilizing neighborhood institutions to benefit a business is counter-intuitive to government efficiency, transparency, and accountability. It also creates segregation by dividing children into two classes:

  • Children who will be accepted at a charter and have transportation
  • Children who are not accepted at a charter and do not have transportation
Around the country, brown and black communities are being pushed off the precipice into privatization. Have you noticed that when the public accountability of an elected board is removed, we have the Charles Pughs, and Eddie Longs, eager to step right up to “mentor” a fresh crop of fatherless victims?
There are many examples I won’t name, but you have heard about them, too. If we want literacy, we have a moral responsibility to shore up deficiencies that exist in our neighborhood schools and empower teachers and parents with the resources they need.
In our homes, we must reinforce the importance of reading. Some families have every game system and shoes with three-figure price tags. These same homes may not have a book. This is the Slavery of Consumerism which keeps us in a financial bondage our children may never escape from.
There are still lessons to be learned from Oliver Twist, and I Know Why the Mockingbird Sings. Books can teach us about faraway places. Books can show a child that his or her self-worth cannot be determined by things. When we hunger for things, we can never have enough things. Things are secondary to character and community pride. Things are secondary to dreams.
At home, we must reinforce education’s role in opportunity. We cannot allow the television and gaming systems to be the educational tools in our home. Whatever neighborhood we live in, we as parents must expose our children to reading at an early age.
Reading is power. We must find creative ways to make learning fun. We break the stranglehold of illiteracy by having strong community-based schools and homes that stress reading skills early. We must praise education and make it paramount to the children’s future.
We can fix this.
We must properly fund public K-12 education.
We cannot abandon our neighborhood schools. We must stop blaming educators and empower them.
We must not allow education of our children to be driven by economic standing.
We must not abandon our special needs students. Some charter schools have done excellent work, but destabilization of our public institutions for school privatization is not the answer.
We must increase educational spending, and use our resources more effectively.
We must move money from the incarceration process to the educational process.
We have to provide our children with the tools to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, and public servants and productive contributors to our community.
After nearly 17 years of school choice, it is estimated that Michigan is 40th of 50 states in child literacy.
With this in mind, we can no longer allow one family in West Michigan to decide the fate of every child via political contributions.
If we want to throw off the choke hold of illiteracy, we must do our duty as citizens.
Many died for our right to vote. Staying home on Election Day has laid the red carpet for politicians beholden to corporations which turn our children into commodities for sale like corn or wheat.
We must care about the policy being written for our community and make our voices heard. We must groom leaders with moral character.
We must get in the voting line and we must pull the lever for people who value funding quality education in every Michigan neighborhood.
We must open a book, and read to our kids.
Literacy is fundamental.

As I meet people across the state, I am amazed how similar we are. They say our nation is divided, but from barbershops to coffee shops, Michiganders I meet share many concerns.

Citizens express their concern for our future, for our infrastructure, for the people of Flint, for our Great Lakes, and for our schools. I have heard stories of citizens’ triumph over adversity, speaking up in the face of retaliation by Emergency Managers, and teachers standing up for students who have no one else. I am encouraged and strengthened by you. We can take back our state.

If you’d like me to speak to your circle of friends, community or political group, service club, civic organization or county Democrats chapter feel free to send an email to my scheduler, Jeffrey Salisbury at JeffreyLSalisbury@gmail.com .

No group is too large or too small. I hope to meet you soon.

  • Bill Cobbs

http://www.billcobbs2018.com/volunteer

Source: Clean Up Michigan – Bill Cobbs for Governor in MI

Email: billcobbsppf@gmail.com

Phone: 248-331-3275

Donate
The people of Michigan have waited too long for the infrastructure, water and educational issues in our state to be solved. If you want a Governor whose priority is putting the people first, you can help out with a donation. Every donation goes a long ways to reaching out to voters just like you, so we can win.
Bill does NOT accept donations from corporations.
Bill Cobbs is truly PUTTING THE PEOPLE FIRST!
http://www.billcobbs2018.com/donate

Source: Creating Quality Education – Bill Cobbs for Governor in MI