News just came across the wire that President-Elect Donald Trump will nominate Betsy DeVos, a vigorous champion of charter schools and school voucher programs, as the new Secretary of Education. I’ve already seen some reaction on social media (and this news is literally minutes old!) that this is a huge shift for both K–12 and postsecondary education, but I have to wonder, given the Department of Education’s support for charter schools in particular over the past couple administrations.
So my question for the College Confidential hivemind: Do you see this as portending a big shift, or just more of the same?
And remember the CC ToS prohibition on political discussion. This is the sort of topic that can go off the rails pretty quickly, so let’s all behave ourselves and stick to the specific topic of likely Department of Education policy rather than making value judgments, okay?
As a retired Federal senior exec who worked with and for political appointees from both parties over the years, I think there will be a shift. The type and degree will depend on direction from the President, the Secretary’s own interests and priorities, and what Congress does in its oversight and budget activities. In the best case, the political folks and the civil servants learn from each other and changes are carefully selected and implemented.
According to the article, this support of unregulated for-profit charter schools was criticized by Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, as damaging to public education.
What concerns me is the for profit aspect of it, didn’t they learn from what happened with for profit colleges? The minute you put a profit motive in it, you are going to create conflict. I also am troubled that there is no oversight, while I would want Charters to have the freedom to experiment and get away from the rigid work rules that many standard schools have, I also want there to be some sort of measure of performance, the kids should be taking standardized tests and if the schools are not effectively reaching goals, they should be made to improve or close. It is like school voucher programs, if we give money to allow parents to send their kids to private schools of any kind, I want proof that that money is being spent educating the child and that they are being taught, for example, science, not creationionism, and that they are learning things they should like US history and other things that should be required.
Of course, state and local standards about the teaching of various subjects in science, history, etc. in the regular public schools may be controversial or questionable as well. For example:
According to the state of Michigan education website, overall statewide proficiency percentages for elementary and middle school are low, and significantly lower this year compared to last year.
For example:
Percentage of students proficient at the end of 3rd grade: Current year: 46%; Prior Year: 50.1% (down 4.1%)
Percentage of students proficient in math and ELA grades 3-8: Current year: 31.5% Prior year: 38.5% (down 7%)
It does not seem that the move to for-profit charter schools has produced positive results in the state of Michigan as a whole.
Im not a fan of charter schools. Here in Ohio they hand charters out like candy, with no oversight. The students for the most part do not perform well, and test scores are not good. Many times the folks who get the charter, also own the buildings, so they pay themselves exorbitant rent, etc. Its a mess.
The Devos policies have been rejected here in MI. They have led the way to move tax dollars to private school (rejected by voters) and has heavily pushed to have tax dollars pushed towards Christian schools.
She has never worked for or had children in public schools.
The charter schools that she has pushed for in MI have not helped students and in many cases have hurt them. I am very concerned about what this will do on a national scale after seeing it fail locally.
The proficiency statistics I quoted show a DOWNWARD trend, so MI schools are doing WORSE this year than last year.
You appear to agree with this. What is opposite?
Can you explain what form this rejection has taken?
One factor that is currently the subject of many tweets is that Erik Prince (of Blackwater fame) is Betsy DeVos’ brother. So there may be more here than meets the eye.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2016/11/23/wisconsin-school-choice-supporters-cheer-devos-pick/94361104/
This is an informative article about Devos’s connections to Wisconsin private-charter-school proponents. It is my understanding that education is one area in which state and local control predominates despite efforts to give the federal government a stronger role but it seems that Devos will at least support efforts at those levels to move taxpayers’ money from public schools to private schools.
I live in a city with a well established system of charter schools and school-of-choice.
Both my children attended charters at some point in their education; son graduated from a nationally recognized charter high school.
In my view the system is… spotty. The charter teachers are underpaid (30% less than public school teachers) and overworked. Most are very young (just a couple years out of college) and - although very committed and passionate - inexperienced. As result, the turnover is higher in charter schools than in the public school system.
School of choice in my city has made the popular/respected schools overcrowded, since no one is turned away due to concerns about the competition from charters/privates.
Charters/school-of-choice… they’re not, IMHO, a solution to improving our schools. It’s balkanized the district, and hurts kids from poor/immigrant families unable to figure out the complexities involved in choosing/getting into a school – or unable to schlepp them across town twice a day every school day to attend the charter/school of choice they’d like.
As with everything these days, the upper-middle class profits from the available options; everyone else seems to be hobbled by restrictions/politics/economics of charter/choice schools.
And the test scores? The level of education? No dramatic city-wide improvements.
All I’m going to say is that she is a very nice person and her family and her husband’s family are very generous to the communities they live, work and play in. The Christian Reformed Church in general is very “big” in giving back their communities. She and her family are one of the top families in the country for philanthropy. I think that means something. My opinion about education is the direction K-12 public education has been moving has not been positive. As I said earlier, public education at the K-12 level is a state responsibility first and second competition is generally not a bad thing so I can’t “fortell” disaster ahead for K-12 education. You can look at data in many different ways. For example in Michigan ACT scores went up, College benchmarks went up, high school graduation rate went up and the drop-out rate decreased. And I’m guessing you would find, like any state differences by region in terms of elementary benchmarks and early high school benchmarks since much as to do with the teachers and the students in that area. I have no issues with families who desire alternative education. Betsy’s husband founded the West Michigan Aviation Academy. I wish her well in her “new job” heaven knows she doesn’t need a j-o-b.
I will offer that another policy concern I have in the era of things getting marginally to significantly better for LGBT children is that Devos and her non-profits have put forth very anti-LGBT policies. It concerns me greatly given the extremely high prevalence of suicides among LGBT youth.
From 2014 to 2015, the improvements in the above categories were pretty small. The decreases in performance for grades 3-8 were much larger. This does not bode well for the future.
Typically I’d expect there to be wrangling and a diluted version of whatever either congress or the President wanted. However in this case you’ll have one party controlling House, Senate, and Executive branches. So yes, I think we’ll some changes in areas where that party has been vocal about education- and school-related policies they support.
School voucher popularity has dropped, but the level of popularity depends on the wording of the question -- emphasizing "government funds" results in vouchers being unpopular, while emphasizing "wider choice" results in vouchers being popular. There is some partisan difference, but the opposite of what is often assumed.
Charter schools are popular (some partisan difference).
Common Core popularity has fallen greatly (with large partisan difference). However, a question about whether one supports the same standards without mentioning "Common Core" resulted in support (with minimal partisan difference).
The new Secretary of Education will solve things differently than how 50% of the country would like, but that does not mean that people would not be accommodated and the issues not solved to the benefit of everyone. There is more than one way to solve things and saying doomsday is here because something may not be solved exactly the way you would like is just over-the-top.
Hm… do people still trust polls, given how wrong pools have proved to be in many respects? Like, 99% of them were wrong, just recently.
Polls strike me as narratives looking for support, and polls are set up to subjectively provide that support. Whether the poll is on the up and up or not is another issue altogether.
As an aside, I taught my kids how to statistically analyze the fine print of polls, and it shocked them how many of the bylines and conclusions were not supported with any significance by the poll, but were stated as fact. They do not even pay attention to polls anymore unless the methodology and the specific numbers are listed clearly.