When Betsy DeVos became U.S. Secretary of Education, I opposed that nomination. There were good candidates available, but I was told that V.P. Mike Pence thought she’d be a good pick. She brought controversy to the position, and even though there were some good policy decisions made by her, there were others that were horrible.
It was DeVos who thought a federal voucher program would be good for children. While it is important to make sure a child who is in a poor quality public school has other options, this should never be implemented at the federal level. Federal dollars following the child means federal strings follow the child too. Federal strings would require private and parochial schools to follow what the feds want, and remove their autonomy in order to qualify for those federal dollars. As much as it would be nice to make these options more available to families, you cannot destroy the private and parochial schools in the process.
DeVos is a Jeb Bush crony who also pushed the dumbed down Common Core in schools across the county. That’s why many conservatives never believed she was the best choice for U.S. Secretary of Education. Common Core was a big set up for failure for public schools. Most people do not know that Jeb Bush’s online Charter Schools would benefit from parents who were fed up and needed an alternative.
Think of Pepsi sabotaging Coke so that Coke customers would be forced to drink Pepsi. If you push education reforms like Common Core that hurt the public schools, parents will need alternatives. Jeb Bush pushed Common Core but then worked to make his online charter schools available to families. He never really talked about how he was instrumental in the public school sabotage.
DeVos is no friend to public education, and I would include private and parochial schools too. She proved that when she pushed the federal voucher program.
Corey DeAngelis has been championing school choice for a while too. DeAngelis is the national director of research at the DeVos-founded American Federation for Children. https://betsydevos.com/about-betsy/
Devos served as Chairman of American Federation for Children (2009 to 2016)
One of the best ways to turn conservatives AGAINST school choice is to start messing with their private and parochial schools. This is why conservatives turned their back on John Kasich in Ohio and Mike Pence in Indiana. Their state vouchers forced children to take the Common Core Standardized tests. Parents then saw their private and parochial schools start to align their curriculum to the dumbed down Common Core. This hurt the children in the private and parochial schools. This didn’t help parents choose a better school, it helped dumb down the private and parochial schools.
Both CATO and the Heritage Foundation came out against the DeVos voucher program because they knew what that meant for private and parochial schools. It would set up a faux school choice system where parents really didn’t have any choice at all. Dumbed down Common Core for all.
Neal McClusky from CATO wrote:
As I wrote yesterday, even though choice is great, it is not something people should want Washington providing. Nor—outside of the DC voucher program, military families, and maybe Native American reservations—is it something that the feds can constitutionally provide. My fear is that DeVos and Trump might not recognize the myriad problems with taking private school choice national. More concerning, the American Federation for Children, which DeVos chairs, has tended to favor more rules and regulations on choice than I would prefer. That could become a much bigger concern were rules and regs attached to national‐level vouchers.
From Heritage (Heritage Experts: Federal Tax-Credit Scholarship Proposal Could Reverse School Choice Gains):
“It’s wonderful that the Administration wants to advance school choice but a nationwide federal tax-credit scholarship program is the wrong way to do it. This could open the door for further education regulations down the road that neutralize the advantages of private education as well as impede future tax reform efforts.
“Future administrations could use a federal tax-credit scholarship to require that schools adhere to certain admissions and accountability policies. That would mean the federal government could further dictate testing, reporting, academic content, and even bathroom policies for all schools involved.
“This proposal is also outside of the federal government’s jurisdiction. It would grow, rather than reduce, federal intervention in education. It would be better for the Education Department to keep highlighting the great advances that states have made in school choice.”
Betsy DeVos tried to lead our private and parochial schools off the cliff with her federal voucher program.
New Hampshire is doing just fine without the interference from the feds. If states want to develop their own programs, let them engage their state elected officials. Even though Indiana and Ohio chose the wrong path, New Hampshire did not. New Hampshire’s scholarship program offers tuition assistance to children who need it without the federal sabatoge you get with testing requirements. If public school administrators and board members will not work on behalf of all New Hampshire families, then we will make sure that they have authentic choices.
While Corey DeAngelis is working the school choice issue on behalf of the DeVos camp, it’s important to understand that their faux version of choice doesn’t really offer parents authentic choice. And to make matters worse, UNESCO lists DeAngelis as a policy expert: https://en.unesco.org/inclusivepolicylab/users/corey-deangelis.
This led to James Lindsay calling out DeAngelis on Twitter to get some clarification on this relationship.
Since UNESCO drives the globalist agenda that has dumbed down our public schools and brought in some of the worst education reforms, I agree with Lindsay, what is this all about?
Maybe the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance can get an answer for us since they invited DeAngelis to their dinner on July 23rd. It will be interesting to hear from the NHLA and how they explain this. I could have warned them!