The Trump administration is looking to cut the Education Department’s funding by $7.1 billion compared to what it was given last year.
The Trump administration’s proposed 2020 budget for the Department of Education includes the usual assault on funding for public education and student financial aid in the supposed name of “education freedom,” i.e., increased funding for private for-profit charter and religious schools.
“Secretary DeVos is proposing gutting investments in students, teachers, public schools, and even school safety -- all to make room for her extreme privatization proposal that no one asked for.”
Trump also plans to eliminate 29 education programs, including “after-school and summer programs for students in high-poverty areas.“ Education Secretary Betsy DeVos admits the cuts are “Tough,” but justifies them by claiming “a commitment to spending taxpayer dollars wisely and efficiently by consolidating or eliminating duplicative and ineffective federal programs.”
In other words, because high-poverty areas still exist (and because DeVos doesn’t personally live in or know anyone who lives in such an area), education programs that benefit high-poverty areas must be “ineffective” and should therefore be eliminated.
The Education Secretary says she was well aware of the damage she was doing when she rolled back trans-inclusive guidelines in 2017.
Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex ... under any education program or activity.” Last year, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded regulations that explicitly applied these Title IX rights to transgender students, and (among other things) allowed them to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.* Earlier this month, she testified about it before Congress.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici: “When you rolled back [the trans-inclusive] guidance did you know that the stress of harassment and discrimination can lead to lower attendance and grades as well as depression and anxiety for transgender students? Did you know that?”
DeVos: “OCR [Office for Civil Rights] is committed to ensuring all students have equal access to education free from discrimination--”
Bonamici: “Sorry, I would really like answer. Students and families need to know this. Did you know, when you rolled back the guidance, that the stress of harassment and discrimination can lead to lower attendance and grades as well as depression for transgender students?”
DeVos: “I do know that.”
...
Bonamici: “When you rolled back the guidance, did you know that a study recently published by the American Academy of Pediatrics revealed alarming levels of attempted suicide among transgender youth?”
DeVos “I am aware of that data.”
She knew; she just didn’t care.
Video is here.
*Devos has also rescinded guidelines allowing colleges and universities to consider racial diversity as an admissions factor, but that’s a different issue.
In a speech in New York, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos doubled down on her belief parents should be free to use tax dollars to send her children to religious schools, a point she underscored by visiting two New York City schools, neither of which was a public school.
Betsy DeVos has long been a proponent of using using public tax dollars to fund private religious schools. Way back in 2001, she declared:
“There are not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education ... [versus] what is currently being spent every year on education in this country ... Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s Kingdom.”
Last month DeVos went to New York City; while there, in her capacity as Secretary of Education, she visited two religious schools and zero public schools. She also gave a nice speech to a Catholic fund-raising organization, in which she had this to say about constitutional separation of church and state:
“Pope Pius the 11th wrote that ‘any monopoly’ that ‘forces families to make use of government schools, contrary to the dictates of their Christian conscience, or contrary even to their legitimate preferences’ is fundamentally ‘unjust.’ Our country has an ugly history of unjust laws that force families to violate their consciences or that disrespect their preferences. In the late 1800s, anti-Catholics ... maneuvered to enact the amendment in state constitutions throughout the country. These Blaine provisions prohibit taxpayer funding of ‘sectarian’ – a euphemism at that time for ‘Catholic’ – activities, even when they serve the public good. Activities like addiction recovery, hospice care, or -- the amendments’ primary target -- parochial education. These amendments are still on the books in 37 states. They were bigoted then, and they still are today. ... These amendments should be assigned to the ash heap of history and this ‘last acceptable prejudice’ should be stamped out once and for all.
...
“Right now, we have a president and a Congress led by folks who support giving parents more freedom. This is our moment. ... Some states will need more prayers and more action than others to bring about needed changes. ... I recognize the cross to bear for families in states like this one is heavy. I can’t help but think of the Gospel story in which Jesus revealed Himself to be the Bread of Life. Saint John reports some disciples found it too hard to accept. They left Jesus at the table and returned to their former lives. Will we walk away, like those disciples did, because what we must do is too hard? No. We cannot leave the table and we cannot leave another generation of students unprepared. I believe we are called to stay as Saint Peter did. To ask, as he did, ‘to whom shall we go?’ I want you to know that I stand with you to answer that call… one I truly believe will change the course of our country.”
DeVos uses religious rhetoric to argue that government funding only for secular public schools somehow “forces families” to attend those public schools and completely deprives them of the choice to attend private religious schools. (Which, of course, it does not; they just have to pay for it like everyone else.) From there, DeVos contends that the constitutional separation between church and state is really just “prejudice” against religion, and therefore that it should be “assigned to the ash heap of history.”
Funny how these very same folks don’t seem to feel as strongly that lack of government funding is the same thing as a complete lack of options in the context of, say, health care, retirement, housing, food, water...
The Trump administration is planning to rescind a set of Obama-era policies that encourage the use of race in college admissions to promote diverse educational settings.
It is settled law that affirmative action is entirely constitutional. For over 40 years, the United States Supreme Court has held that educational benefits flow from having a diverse student body, and that colleges and universities may therefore consider race as one factor in the admissions process. (Race just can’t be the only factor.)
Last year Jeff Sessions, Trump’s racist attorney general, nevertheless directed the Justice Department‘s Civil Rights Division to focus its resources on investigating and suing colleges and universities “deemed to have discriminated against whites.”
Now Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are issuing new formal guidelines that--although they claim affirmative action is still legally permissible--expressly reject the use of diversity as an admissions factor at all. And, as an added bonus, they get to eliminate yet another policy with President Obama’s name on it, furthering their overarching goal of trying to undo everything Obama ever did in his eight years and expunge the nation’s only African-American president from history completely.
As far as Sessions and DeVos are concerned, the law requires “race-neutral” admissions, so it is impermissible to consider diversity in any way. Period. Fuck diversity, fuck Obama, fuck all non-whites, and fuck the Supreme Court.
Astonishingly, both Sessions and DeVos are white. Who’d’ve thunk it?
A company that once had financial ties to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was one of two firms selected Thursday by the Education Department to help the agency collect overdue student loans. The deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
When Donald Trump picked Republican mega-donor Betsy DeVos to run the Department of Education, some were concerned because she had absolutely no relevant experience. Others were concerned because she is a long-time opponent of public education, preferring to support private schools, charter schools, and home schooling. Some raised concerns about her refusal to support federal laws protecting disabled students, her opposition to federal protections for LGBT+ students (which she has since announced the Department will not enforce), or her opposition to federal guidelines on campus sexual assault (which she has since rescinded). Some were troubled by her husband’s stance that creationism should be taught in public schools.
And a few “were uneasy about the influence she could still wield over companies with which she has had a relationship.”
Among those concerned were several Senators, who sent DeVos a formal letter back in January of 2017 raising their ethical concerns:
“You also noted in your ethics agreement that you will continue to hold financial interests in eight entities, including an investment worth millions in RDV Corporation. This investment vehicle appears to be connected to Performant Financial Corp. — a debt collector that is currently seeking a new contract with the Education Department after the Department declined to renew its previous contract last year. While you have agreed to divest from financial interests linked to Performant, we remain concerned by your continued financial interests in RDV Corporation, which appears to be connected to Performant through MCF CLO IV, LMF WF Portfolio II, LMF WF Portfolio III, and/or other funds managed by Madison Capital Funding.”
To clarify: RDV Corporation is the DeVos family investment management company. ("RDV” stands for Richard DeVos, her husband.) As the Senators noted, RDV is a substantial investor in a hedge fund called LMF WF Portfolio. LMF was one of the companies that loaned $147 million to Performant Financial Corp. LMF--and, by extension, RDV--thus has a vested interest in ensuring Performant’s financial health.
Under DeVos, the Department of Education has cracked down on collecting student loans, first ignoring and then eliminating some federal rules designed to protect students from predatory lenders. Naturally, the Department has to pay someone to collect these loans, “contracts valued at up to $400 million.” Historically, “the department has used as many as 17 companies to recoup past-due student loans.” Which is why eyebrows were raised last week when the Department selected only two firms.
One is Windham Professionals, one of seven firms the Obama administration selected two years ago: “Windham’s management was rated satisfactory and its past performance deemed ‘exceptional.’”
The other is the aforementioned Performant Financial Corp., who was not selected two years ago because its ratings are significantly poorer: “Performant’s management was rated ‘marginal,’ while its past performance as a contractor was deemed ‘satisfactory.’”
So the Department selected an underqualified firm that just happens to owe rather a lot of money to a company in which the DeVos family has a substantial financial interest. And as one of only two collection firms, it stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Pure coincidence, no doubt.
The Education Department insists that DeVos had “no knowledge, let alone involvement,” in the new debt-collection contract. If that sounds familiar, you might be thinking of that time the State Department verified that Hillary Clinton “never intervened ... in any CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter,” including when the nine agencies comprising CFIUS did not object to the proposed sale of a majority stake in Uranium One to Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear agency.
But I’m sure Secretary DeVos will be investigated just as thoroughly as Secretary Clinton was.
