Tag: Betsy DeVos

Betsy DeVos’ Deliberate Ignorance

January 17, 2018 4:48 pm January 17, 2018

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Between 2002 and 2015, the years under which George W. Bush and Barack Obama presided over federal efforts to spur systemic school reform that included the now-abolished No Child Left…

Between 2002 and 2015, the years under which George W. Bush and Barack Obama presided over federal efforts to spur systemic school reform that included the now-abolished No Child Left Behind Act, the number of functionally-illiterate fourth graders, those reading Below Basic on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, declined by 172,078 children. In that same period, the percentage of functionally-illiterate Black fourth-graders declined by 12 percentage points in that same period (from 60 percent to 48 percent) while the percentage of Latino fourth-graders struggling with literacy declined by nine percentage points (from 43 percent to 34 percent), and a 10 percentage point decrease in the number of fourth-graders on free- and reduced-priced lunch programs reading Below Basic (from 54 percent to 44 percent).

The percentage of fourth-graders reading at Proficient and Advanced levels — essentially at and above grade level — increased by five percentage points between 2002 and 2015. This included a five percentage point increase in the number of Black fourth-graders reading at and above grade level, a six percentage point increase among Latino children, and even a four percentage point increase among children on free- and reduced priced lunch programs, the poorest children in America.

Meanwhile the percentage of functionally-illiterate eighth-graders on free and reduced-priced lunch plans declined by three percentage points within this period, while there was also a nine percentage point decrease in the number of Latino eighth-graders struggling with literacy. At the same time, the percentage of Black eight-graders reading at Proficient and Advanced levels increased by two percentage points in that same period while the percentage of Latino eighth-graders reading at and above grade level increased by five percentage points. Even better, the percentage of low-income eighth-grade students reading at Proficient and Advanced levels increased by three percentage points within that period.

These improvements resulted in part from No Child’s Adequate Yearly Progress provision, which required states to meet their obligations under their own constitutions to provide children in public schools with high-quality education and hold districts and other school operators accountable for failure mills and dropout factories they run. Suburban districts could no longer continue to commit educational malpractice against poor and minority children. School operators had to focus on achieving measurable results instead of damning kids to low expectations. Data became critical to providing all children with high-quality teaching, curricula and cultures.

As Thomas Ahn of the University of Kentucky and Duke University’s Jacob Vigdor determined in a study of North Carolina schools released last year, No Child’s accountability measures have helped the Tar Heel State improve achievement and even helped families in failing schools move into better-performing ones. On average, a North Carolina school failing AYP for the first time improved its math performance by five percent of a standard deviation. A poor-performing Tar Heel State school under Needs Improvement for a fifth consecutive year (and forced to develop a restructuring plan) improved reading performance by six percent of a standard deviation, while math achievement improved by nearly three percent of a standard deviation.

Under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, fewer children were functionally illiterate and more went on to success in adulthood. This is unlikely to happen during the Trump era.

The improvements in education didn’t come just through efforts in traditional districts. As part of their reform efforts, the Bush and Obama administrations continued the effort first began under Bill Clinton to provide more children with opportunities to attain high-quality education they need and deserve. This includes the opening of 4,179 charter schools between 2002-2003 and 2014-2015, according to the U.S. Department of Education, as well as the launch of school voucher programs in Florida, Indiana and Louisiana.

Thanks to high-quality charter schools in urban communities, children in those schools gain 58 additional days of learning in math and 41 additional days of learning in reading compared to peers in traditional districts. More importantly, as seen with charter school operators such as the Knowledge is Power Program, charters have improved the chances of poor and minority children graduating from traditional colleges, community colleges, technical schools and apprenticeship programs (usually run through community colleges) that make up American higher education.

The point in citing these facts? That contrary to the assertions made yesterday by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the reform efforts led by Bush and Obama (and their education secretaries) that began with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and accelerated with Race to the Top achieved measurable and quantifiable results that improved the lives of so many of our children.

From the accountability provisions that forced states to focus on achievement gaps, to the expansion of charter schools, vouchers and other forms of choice, to support for implementation by states of Common Core reading and math standards first developed in the first decade of this century, to the efforts under the Obama Administration to end the overuse of out-of-school suspensions and other forms of harsh school discipline (as well as criminalization of youth), both Bush and Obama spurred reforms (including the charters and vouchers supported by DeVos herself in her previous role as a school reform philanthropists) that have helped more children gain the knowledge they need to succeed in adulthood.

This is not to say that the efforts were unqualified successes. Nothing done by man will ever be. No Child’s focus on basic literacy and numeracy, a reflection of the mission of the school reform movement for most of its modern history, no longer suffices in an age in which some form of higher education is critical to economic, social, and political success. The Obama Administration’s No Child waiver gambit, which began the evisceration of accountability that continued with the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act two years ago, was arrogant policymaking and sloppy implementation that has harmed systemic reform. Just as importantly, as Dropout Nation has consistently pointed out and as exemplified by the latest edition of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the need to continue systemic reform remains paramount.

Yet the data (along with the long history of proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Bush and Obama administrations successfully embraced the federal government’s necessary, constitutional and life-affirming role in ensuring that every child, especially poor and minority children served poorly by American public education, get a chance at high-quality education. The administrations achieved measurable results that are important steps in helping all children succeed — if DeVos and the Trump regime (along with congressional leaders and those at the state level) bother to do their parts.

Barack Obama didn’t always get it right on education policy. But his administration got it right a lot of the time. Which is saying something.

DeVos’ sophistry, however, isn’t shocking. After all, she gave her speech at an event held by the American Enterprise Institute, whose education czar, Rick Hess, has long opposed focusing on stemming achievement gaps and has generally been, to say it kindly, not all that interested in building brighter futures for the poor and minority children harmed the most by the failures of American public education.

More importantly, DeVos’ dismissal of the need for a strong federal role in education policy and protecting the civil rights of Black and Brown children is reflective of that of the administration in which she serves.

As we already know, President Donald Trump spent the last week doubling down on his White Supremacist rhetoric when he called several African nations which account for the bulk of immigrants to the United States (as well as Haiti) “shitholes”, expressed his preference that the nation bring in more emigres from Norway and other European (White) countries, and dismissed concerns from the Congressional Black Caucus, whose members represent Black and Latino children (as well as their communities) on Capitol Hill.

The statement, which came during a meeting over an increasingly-unlikely deal to stop the deportation of 760,000 youth, young adults and classroom teachers previously covered under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, once again highlights the reality that the Trump Administration’s long-term goal is what can best be called low-grade ethnic cleansing against immigrants and Native-born Americans who aren’t Caucasian.

DeVos, along with erstwhile school reformers working at the Department of Education, have been willing collaborators in the administration’s war against poor and minority communities. This includes moves to weaken and end Obama-era efforts to stem overuse of suspensions (as well as use of restraints and seclusion practices that harm children condemned to special ed ghettos), to supporting the expansion of 529 college saving accounts for K-12 expenditures that does little for poor and middle class families.

Meanwhile her unwillingness to condemn Trump’s rank bigotry and demagoguery demonstrates that she has little concern for the most-vulnerable children her agency is charged with protecting. Her allies will argue that her past record of advancing school choice proves otherwise. But her record since her nomination for the nation’s top education policy job makes lie of those claims. This is even without considering her general unfitness for her role.

One thing is ultimately clear: Neither Betsy DeVos nor her boss will be the champions for children their predecessors were. For that, and their general indifference to facts and truth, they should both be ashamed.

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Dropout Nation Podcast The Conversation

The Conversation: Daniel Losen on Reforming School Discipline

The Conversation at Dropout Nation

December 14, 2017 2:07 pm December 14, 2017

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On this edition of The Conversation, Daniel Losen of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA discusses his testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on school discipline reform, challenges…

On this edition of The Conversation, Daniel Losen of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA discusses his testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on school discipline reform, challenges the claims of Max Eden and others opposed to the federal guidance on addressing disparities, surmises why opponents of ending overuse of suspensions and other harsh discipline are unwilling to engage three decades of data proving the need for overhaul, and what districts must do to transform school climates for the better.

Listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle Radio or download directly to your mobile or desktop device. Also, subscribe to The Conversation podcast series and the overall Dropout Nation Podcast series. You can also embed this podcast on your site. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Google Play, Stitcher, and PodBean.

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Three Thoughts

529 Vain Hopes to Expand School Choice

November 3, 2017 12:01 am November 3, 2017

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Dropout Nation normally doesn’t publish on Fridays. But yesterday’s unveiling by Congressional Republicans of $1 trillion tax-cutting proposal includes a plan to expand school choice through existing education savings plan…

Dropout Nation normally doesn’t publish on Fridays. But yesterday’s unveiling by Congressional Republicans of $1 trillion tax-cutting proposal includes a plan to expand school choice through existing education savings plan currently used to fund higher education tuition payments. The actual mechanics — as well as a failure to provide a similar tax credit plan to low-income families — is another reminder that the Trump Administration has no good intentions for poor and minority children. It is also proves that hopes among conservative reformers for a major expansion of choice weren’t worth the compromises they made to their morality and commitment to help all children.

At the heart of the Congressional Republican plan, contained in House Resolution 1 (or the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”), is a move to allow families to use 529 college savings plans offered by states and some financial firms to pay as much as $10,000 a year in elementary and secondary school expenses. This can range from private school and apprenticeship tuition to expenses for tutoring services families use to help their children succeed in school. If implemented, the idea, floated earlier this year by the Heritage Foundation, would transform 529s from mere college tuition savings programs (and tools for grandparents to siphon off their wealth before going into the hereafter) to vehicles similar to education tax credits already in place in states such as Nevada.

For middle class and wealthier families who haven’t used 529s so far, not only would the conversion of the plans help them pay for private school tuitions and other expenses, it also comes with a tax benefit to boot. Nearly every state allows contributors to 529 plans to exercise a tax deduction, meaning more tax dollars back into their pockets. Which, by the way, is something they will need since Congressional Republicans plan on reducing the level of deductions they can take on state and local taxes in order to finance the tax cuts they plan under the bill.

Save for worries about 529 plans straying from the original purpose of saving for those increasingly expensive college bills (and the risk of reducing incentives to seek out college education), your editor has no great problem with this proposal on its face. After all, middle class families in suburbia (especially those from Black and Latino households) have long been denied the charter schools and other choice options that are far more robust in urban communities. If this plan was tied together with an Earned Income Tax Credit-style program that helps poor and minority households gain money they can use for private school tuition payments and tutoring (which they can then use to make direct payments or start 529 accounts for their children), as well as keeping current deductions on state and local taxes (which help fund traditional districts), the proposed 529 conversion would be a win-win for all families and children.

Yet this is not the case. Neither Congressional Republicans nor the Trump Administration pushed for an education tax credit program. Which means poor and minority households end up losing out on additional opportunities to help their children gain opportunities for high-quality education and ultimately, the knowledge they need to become part of the middle class.

The lack of such a plan raises the same concerns school choice advocates such as Howard Fuller have had about ESAs that poor families lose out at the expense of families that already have resources and can take advantage of various vehicles that allow them to save and reduce tax burdens all at once. This is especially problematic when you consider that 51 percent of all K-12 students (especially those from Black, Latino American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian households) are on free- and reduced-lunch programs, a proxy for being low-income. The American Federation for Children (whose board current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos once chaired) has already expressed disappointment that nothing was done to help the poorest families gain choice.

Your editor isn’t exactly shocked. As Dropout Nation readers can recall, I noted back in July that efforts to use the tax code to expand school choice were running afoul of Congressional tax writers, whose concerns had more to do with reducing tax bills for higher-income Americans and corporations than with expanding choice. [Staffers at the U.S. Department of the Treasury also disdained those plans because of the potential impact on the nation’s finances.]

That the Trump Administration is a basket case of a regime with few appointments filled at the U.S. Department of Education and incapable of convincing senators to pass various versions of an ObamaCare repeal all but guaranteed that a school choice expansion would be lackluster. Add in the reality that Congressional and Senate Republicans are also terrible in crafting legislation, and the likelihood of a comprehensive choice program was remote to impossible.

But the problem wasn’t just with the Trump regime’s inability to organize and craft policy (or that of Congressional Republicans). The administration has demonstrated since January that it has no interest in doing well by poor and minority children.

Even the one bone it tossed — a $250 million increase in funding for the federal Charter School Fund and the devotion of $1 billion in Title I funds for intra-district choice for low-income children — was funded in part by eliminating $2.2 billion in funding for Americorps, the program that helps districts provide poor and minority children with Teach for America recruits proven to improve their academic achievement. Given Teach For America’s political muscle as well as that of traditional districts, and those reductions were never going to happen. The effort, put simply, was anything but serious policymaking for advancing systemic reform.

Meanwhile the Trump Administration has done all it can to render miserable the lives of Black, Latino, Native, and immigrant children. From ending Obama Administration-era efforts to stem overuse of harsh school discipline against minority children, to September’s move to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (which ensured that 760,000 undocumented immigrant children, youth and adults brought to the country as children aren’t deported), to last week’s move to detain 10-year-old Rosa Maria Hernandez as she was heading to a Laredo, Texas, hospital for emergency surgery, the Trump regime has proven uninterested in doing right by our most-vulnerable children.

Conservative reformers, including hardcore school choice activists, will argue that at least there may be an expansion of options through converting 529 plans. But that may not happen. This is because the tax plan itself is now opposed by a variety of interests, including homebuilders and real estate agents opposed to the proposed limitation of the mortgage deduction to homes worth less than $500,000, states and districts upset over the limits on state and local tax deductions, deficit hawks worried that the plan will increase the federal deficit, healthcare advocates concerned that the plan will be a stealth attempt at repealing ObamaCare, and advocates for abortion opposed to the 529 proposal’s plan to allow for families to save for the unborn. So it is unlikely to pass. Which means that this plan to expand choice may not happen after all.

Since DeVos’ nomination last November, all but a few conservative reformers have been silent about both the Trump Administration’s bigotry (as well as DeVos’ own lack of fitness for the job), while others have actively defended it. All in the hopes that their policy proposals would become reality. But it increasingly appears that for the most part, those hopes have been dashed.

These folks will have to look themselves in the mirror and ask if any of this was worth sacrificing their mission to help all children, no matter who they are or where they live, succeed in school and in life. The answers should trouble them their sleep and their waking hours.

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Three Thoughts

Rosa Maria’s Challenge for School Reform

October 30, 2017 4:22 pm October 30, 2017

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A lot of people will be talking about the indictment of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort and his former business partner, Rick Gates, on charges of money laundering…

A lot of people will be talking about the indictment of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort and his former business partner, Rick Gates, on charges of money laundering and failure to register as foreign agents on behalf of Ukranian and Russian interests. After all, the move by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on that front, along with the guilty plea by George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor to Trump during his successful run for president, are the first steps in what might end up being Trump’s impeachment for colluding with the Russian government in its alleged effort to influence the 2016 presidential election.

But your editor is far more concerned about how the current Occupant of the White House’s regime is harming the life of a 10-year-old undocumented emigre child with cerebral palsy who was detained last week in the midst of a medical emergency. That case is the latest example of how the Trump Administration’s goal of harming the lives of poor and minority children — and another reason why reformers from all sides must stand against the administration’s abuse.

The child, named Rosa Maria Hernandez, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Patrol on her way to emergency surgery for a ruptured gall bladder. The child, who was brought to the country as a three-month-old in order to get better healthcare than she could in Mexico, suffers from a level of cognitive disability that renders her more like a four-year-old than a child in the fourth grade. Even though the Trump Administration has the discretion to let Rosa stay at home with her family in Laredo, Texas, in order to recover from the surgery — and despite having a cognitive disability that renders her unable to protect herself from the kinds of sexual and physical abuses that happen in immigration jails — it decided instead to detain her in a jail 156 miles away in San Antonio, from which she will likely be sent to a country that she has never known.

As you would expect, Rosa’s case has attracted media attention as well as the presence of the American Civil Liberties Union, which now represents her. It has demanded the Trump Administration to release Rosa from jail within the next 24 hours or find itself facing another of many suits it has filed over the regime’s denial of due process for (and criminal abuse of) undocumented emigres. The administration, having been willing to engage in propaganda campaigns instigated by former Homeland Administration Secretary (and now White House Chief of Staff) John Kelly that smear undocumented emigres as “rapists” and “bad hombres”, and has sparred with congressional leaders such as Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson over the president’s insensitivity to the widows of servicemen killed in action, has shown no willingness to back down.

The Trump Administration is keeping Rosa Maria from her mother and father at a time she when needs them the most.

Given Rosa Maria’s condition, what the Trump Administration has done to her and her family is morally unacceptable. Yet it is the norm for this regime.

President Donald Trump himself has made nativism and White Supremacy the hallmarks of his tenure in the White House — and his demagoguery has been on display long before he ran for the presidency. On the campaign trail, he accused Mexican immigrants, undocumented and legal, of being “rapists” and “bad hombres”; embraced conspiratorial rhetoric from the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a speech given a month before his victory; denigrating the family of a dead soldier who was also a Muslim; and accusing Gonzalo Curiel, a federal judge presiding over a case involving one of his business of being biased against him because of his Mexican heritage.

Since taking office, Trump’s efforts against immigrants and refugees has continued unabated.This includes the executive orders banning Muslims from several countries from entering the country; to the repeal of the Obama Administration’s executive order requiring traditional districts and other public school operators to allow transgendered children to use bathrooms of the sex with which they identify; to the round-ups and deportations of undocumented immigrants who contribute greatly to the nation’s economy; to even claiming in July that Mexican emigres wanted to take young women and “slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before they die.”

The major step came last month when the Trump Administration ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era initiative that protected 760,000 children, youth and young adults (including 20,000 teachers working in America’s classrooms) brought to the country as children from deportation. Since then, the Trump Administration has worked to frustrate efforts by DACA recipients in states affected by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma to register under the program for protection.

By ending DACA, Trump signaled clearly that his low-grade ethnic cleansing would extend to the most-vulnerable, boys and girls who have only known America as their home. Helpless children in the midst of learning now being told by the federal government and by the Trump regime that they are undeserving of being treated humanely like the Children of God and members of the Family of Man that they are. Teachers helping poor and minority children gain the knowledge they need for lifelong success being tossed from this country just because their parents brought them here to have better lives and be builders of this nation. Collegians who will be the nation’s future leaders and builders of society kicked out because they aren’t White or native.

But the Trump Administration hasn’t limited its bigotry to immigrant children. Through the U.S. Department of Education, the regime is working hard not to enforce its civil rights obligation to poor and minority children in American public education. This includes a move to limit evidence that can be used by investigators in determining if districts and charter school operators are overusing such harsh discipline as out-of-school suspensions and solitary confinement.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been a collaborator in the Trump regime’s agenda against poor and minority children.

Last week, Politico reported that the administration planned on delaying or eliminating a rule enacted under the Obama Administration that requires districts to limit the number of Black children condemned to the nation’s special education ghettos (and denied opportunities for the high-quality education they need and deserve). By delaying or eliminating the rule, DeVos and Trump would give districts and other school operators free reign to use special ed as a way to not address the literacy issues of young Black men and others, setting back an important part of the school reform effort George W. Bush began in the last decade.

Meanwhile the administration hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of the 8.9 million poor children who were receiving health care through the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program after Congress let the authorizing legislation expire last month. Without CHIP, those children will now lose out on medical treatments that allow them to thrive in school and make it to adulthood.

Now comes the case of Rosa Maria and her plight in a San Antonio immigration prison. Once again, the Trump Administration has proven that it will do ill to even those children who are disabled all because of who they are and who gave birth to them.

Plenty of reformers, from Teach to America to TNTP, have condemned the Trump Administration’s other actions against poor and minority children. There are still others who remain silent. Particularly among conservative reformers (including those with ties to DeVos and her philanthropies), it is much-easier to change the subject than it is to confront the reality of this administration’s evil towards children for whom they proclaim concern.For them, the case of Rosa Maria should serve as the last straw and should push them to condemn the administration.

Certainly reformers can’t spend the bulk of their time on immigration reform. But they can sign on to the ACLU’s letter demanding her release and ultimately, a path towards citizenship for her and her family. They can go further and demand that DeVos weigh in by expressing support for a plan to help DACA emigres gain the citizenship they deserve.

Finally, those who haven’t actively condemned Trump’s bigotry should do so. If they can take time to castigate traditionalists for defending the superclusters in American public education that fail Black and Brown children daily, they can also denounce an administration that wants to further those failures.

Rosa Maria deserves better. So do other poor and minority children. The time to call out the Trump Administration for its evil is now.

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Three Thoughts

Betsy DeVos’ School Discipline Problem

October 18, 2017 2:42 pm October 18, 2017

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There were plenty of responses to Saturday’s piece on whether or not U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a White Supremacist. As I have pointed out, the reality is…

There were plenty of responses to Saturday’s piece on whether or not U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is a White Supremacist. As I have pointed out, the reality is that while the education philanthropist-turned-education czar is no White Supremacist, she has continuously collaborated with a regime whose goal is to harm the communities of Black, Latino, and immigrant children as well as the people who love and care for them.

One of the ways she has done this lies with the moves by the U.S. Department of Education to ignore its civil rights obligations as written in the Every Student Succeeds Act as well as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, including stemming the overuse of out-of-school suspensions and other harsh traditional discipline that damages poor and minority kids. The move to bring in Hans Bader, who has dismissed decades of research on this issue, is the latest example of DeVos’ aiding and abetting of bigotry.

As Dropout Nation readers know by now, DeVos’ appointee to oversee the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Candice Jackson, has already taken steps to end the Obama Administration’s efforts to push traditional districts and charter schools to use new approaches to discipline that actually help all children learn. This includes issuing guidance to regional directors to stop collecting three years of past complaints filed by against a district or charter when investigating a new complaint. Essentially this means investigators can no longer use previous complaints as evidence of a district systematically overusing suspensions, expulsions, spankings, and even restraints and seclusion (solitary confinement) against particular groups of kids.

Now with Bader, a former scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (and brother of its current president), on board as a member of the Department of Education’s legal staff, DeVos and Jackson are likely to take the next step in ending efforts on school discipline reform: Rescind the “Dear Colleague” guidance issued by the Obama Administration three years ago that reminded districts to stop overusing harsh school discipline against Black, Latino, and Native children because it violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The guidance has been widely opposed by traditionalists and so-called conservative school reformers such as Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Hans Bader (right) will now have a role in shaping federal policy on school discipline. Those who care about the futures of children should shudder at the thought.

Despite having spent little time on studying school discipline and other civil rights issues, Bader has emerged as a go-to guy for movement conservatives and others opposed to federal efforts on school discipline reform (as well as on the effort to address how universities handle rape incidents on their campuses). His arguments against a federal role in school discipline reform can be summed up in two sentences. The first: That the Obama Administration’s guidance is overreach because the federal government has no right to address any form of overuse of school discipline, especially “disparate impact” in which policies can incidentally or deliberately discriminate against poor and minority children. The second: That there is no racial or ethnic bias in how districts and other school operators mete out such discipline in the first place.

There are plenty of problems with Bader’s first argument. On the legal merits, the ability of the federal government to weigh in on disparate impact was settled three years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project that the federal government could address such matters. While the ruling focused on housing, the high court’s ruling effectively kibboshed a previous opinion, Alexander v. Sandoval, that Bader often uses in his arguments against federal oversight on school discipline matters. Put simply, disparate impact is now legally recognized as a form of racism, essentially accepting the reality that bigotry need not be overt to actually exist and harm the most-vulnerable. [More on that in a minute.]

As Dropout Nation noted three years ago in a critique of a similar argument made by Hoover Institution scholar Richard Epstein on the pages of Education Next, Bader fails to recognize that Title IV of the Civil Rights Act is actually fairly broad, giving the federal government plenty of leeway to address any denial of opportunities for equal education. This includes addressing complaints from families over any instance where their children are being denied high-quality learning. More importantly, Bader fails to consider other civil rights legislation, including the Every Student Succeeds Act (the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act) and IDEA, which grants broad leeway on this front. Particularly with Title IV of ESSA, which gives the federal government leeway to address and fund efforts to deal with school violence, the federal government is given an expansive role in addressing how districts and states use school discipline.

As for Bader’s second argument: Three decades of data and research demonstrate that it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

As a team led by Daniel Losen of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA noted in their review of suspension and expulsion data, the out-of-school suspension rate of 23.2 percent for black middle- and high schoolers in 2013-2014 (based on data released by the U.S. Department of Education) is three times the 6.4 percent out-of-school suspension rate for white peers. This, too, has been consistent in analysis of data, this time that of state governments. This isn’t surprising because decades of data have shown this. A team led by University of Pittsburgh researcher John Wallace demonstrated in a 2008 study that young black men in 10th grade are 30 percent more-likely to be referred dean’s offices — and 330 percent more-likely to be suspended — for the same offenses than white peers.

The consequences of overusing harsh school discipline isn’t just limited to time out of classrooms.

As with the overlabeling of young men as special ed cases, a key reason why so many children black and brown have been suspended lies with the perceptions of adults in schools about the kids they are supposed to teach. Recent studies of the perceptions of children held by their teachers echo Vanderbilt University Professor Daniel J. Reschly’s longstanding point that adults in schools end up deeming kids as unworthy because they think they are destined to end up that way. These biases, which data has demonstrated to be clear when it comes to discipline, are often reflected in how White teachers view Black children in their care in other areas of instruction and school culture.

As I pointed out on Saturday, White Supremacy (along with other forms of bigotry) isn’t simply about overt acts and outright statements. It consists of a continuum of actions that are often divorced from personal and social intentions. Even if a person doesn’t intend on being bigoted, they can support, be indifferent to, or unwilling to change policies and practices that maliciously or incidentally damage the lives and futures of poor and minority people. In the case of school discipline, the consequences of policies and practices can be as racialist as overt acts by those engaged in explicit racial discrimination.

Even if teachers and school leaders aren’t explicitly targeting black and Latino children in meting out discipline, the decisions they make can result in educational neglect, malpractice and abuse. This isn’t just true for poor and minority children. Children regardless of background condemned to the nation’s special education ghettos are subjected to even harsher school discipline –including restraints and seclusion (also known as solitary confinement when done to adults) — because teachers perceive them to be unworthy of more-therapeutic treatment. The consequences of these failed practices can be seen in and out of schools, especially in how police officers brought into schoolhouses deal with Black and Brown children and even those who are White with special needs.

Given the voluminous evidence, the fact that Bader continually argues against school discipline reform demonstrates his intellectual sophistry and his lack of fitness for serving in any role that tangentially involves public education. That he has little in the way of experience in addressing civil rights issues, especially on the education front, makes him even less fit to serve.

Yet it isn’t shocking that he is in this role. This is because DeVos has long ago demonstrated her lack of knowledge and general incuriosity about the role the federal government can play in addressing the underlying causes of the nation’s education crisis and advancing systemic reform. More importantly, given her unwillingness to criticize Donald Trump’s bigotry and that of the administration before and after taking up space at L’Enfant Plaza, the Department of Education was bound to be as involved as the departments of Justice and Homeland Security in advancing the administration’s efforts against poor and minority people.

Certainly DeVos isn’t an active White Supremacist. Her past record supporting the expansion of school choice demonstrates that. But she is clearly a collaborator in the administration’s agenda. The hiring of Bader exemplifies this reality.

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The Weekend Three Thoughts

Rick Hess’ DeVos (and White Supremacy) Problem

October 14, 2017 4:37 pm October 14, 2017

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Hess Protests Too Much: Your editor keeps a few things in mind when it comes to American Enterprise Institute education czar Rick Hess’ jeremiad in Education Week about a protest banner…

Hess Protests Too Much: Your editor keeps a few things in mind when it comes to American Enterprise Institute education czar Rick Hess’ jeremiad in Education Week about a protest banner accusing U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos of being a White Supremacist during her appearance last month at Harvard University. The first is that AEI’s star-studded board includes the education secretary’s brother, Erik Prince, who is also a prime donor to the think tank. That conflict must be considered when reading anything Hess writes in defense of her. Secondly: Hess himself has earned a reputation for being racially myopic, especially in his dismissal of focusing on achievement gaps in transforming public education as well as his statement that expanding school choice rewards the supposed irresponsibility of poor and minority families. Simply put, when Hess discusses any issue involving race, he is often projecting.

All that said, let’s concede one of Hess’ key arguments in that piece: That the Harvard student who displayed the banner could used better choice of words. Not because, as Hess argues, accusations of White Supremacy are tossed around too liberally these days (more on that in a second). But because the protester could have offered more-direct complaints about DeVos’ tenure that are on the mark.

There’s the move made by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to reduce the scope of its investigations into systemic overuse of suspensions, expulsions, spankings, and even restraints and seclusion (solitary confinement) against Black, Latino and other minority children, essentially scaling back the agency’s mission of protecting the most-vulnerable children. There’s DeVos’ tepid response in August to the violence by White Supremacists in Charlottesville (which echoed that of the rest of the Trump Administration). There’s also her consistent failure to condemn the bigotry of her boss, the current Occupant of the White House, who has consistently accused undocumented Latino emigres of being rapists and members of gangs. Finally, there is her unwillingness and inability to stand up for other vulnerable children, from transgendered youth to the 800,000 undocumented youth and adults brought to America as kids who now face deportation thanks to the Trump Administration’s move to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

None of this, by the way, includes her general unwillingness to embrace the civil rights mission of the Department of Education as laid out in the Every Student Succeeds Act and other federal education policies. An issue made clear again earlier this week when her priorities list was revealed, none of which mentioned doing right by poor and minority children.

As you would expect, Hess didn’t mention any of those issues in his critique. After all, he would have to concede that those protesters would have a legitimate point to make, even if he disagreed with them. More importantly, in acknowledging those issues, he ends up weakening his main argument: That far too many people, including progressive and civil rights-oriented school reformers, are too willing to accept (and toss around) accusations of White Supremacy and racial bigotry.

This is because, like a number of prominent White intellectuals outside of education policy such as New York‘s Jonathan Chait, Hess fails to admit is that bigotry in general, and White Supremacy in particular, isn’t some binary thing. That is, White Supremacy isn’t simply about someone being an active bigot or professing their hatred of people from other racial and ethnic backgrounds.

All racism, including White Supremacy, is a continuum of actions that are often divorced from personal and social intentions. A Klansman or Skinhead can occasionally do good for — and even save the life of — people who he generally hates. At the same time, a person who isn’t a bigot, even someone who has committed themselves to helping those who don’t look like them, can support or remain silent about policies and practices that maliciously or incidentally damage the lives and futures of poor and minority people. More importantly, as author Richard Rubin once surmised in his famous essay on the jurors who let off the murderers of Emmett Till, individuals regardless of their position and power can find themselves unwilling to challenge and oppose those policies as well as the men and women who are promulgating them.

This reality, of course, creates a conundrum for many White reformers, especially those of a conservative bent, who support practices done by others in and out of the movement that have been proven by data and evidence to damage the very children they proclaim their concern. In the case of Betsy DeVos, the reality is magnified by her decision to join a regime deliberately dead set on harming those very same kids.

Certainly, DeVos’ admirable record in expanding school choice does argue against her being an active White Supremacist. But since Trump’s election to the presidency last November, she has been unwilling to challenge him on his bigoted statements, both before and after being nominated to serve as the nation’s top education officer. More importantly, she has done nothing to intervene on behalf of children, especially those who are undocumented as well as native-born children of emigres, as they deal with the Trump Administration’s active efforts against them and their families (including moves by the U.S. Department of Justice to deny due process in deportation hearings).

In fact, by simply joining Trump’s administration, DeVos tacitly agreed to not stand up for the children Black and Brown whose families (along with their futures), the regime has essentially targeted for condemnation to the economic and social abyss. Even worse, as a philanthropist who already had an influential role in shaping education policy through roles such as chairing the American Federation for Children, she didn’t need to join. DeVos made a calculated decision to associate herself with the likes of Attorney General Jeff Sessions (who was once denied a federal court judgeship because of his rank bigotry) and Trump himself, whose long record of racism existed long before he decided to run for public office.

While DeVos may not be a bigot or a White Supremacist, she is a willing collaborator with one. That Hess fails to realize or accept this speaks more about his issues than about others within the movement who have been unwilling to defend his favorite education politician.

More on Making History and Civics Personal: There have been plenty of responses to this month’s essay on how genealogy records and other data can be used to help children better-understand American history and civics. One of the questions raised was what are other ways can teachers make history personal and relevant to the children they teach. Just as importantly, beyond understanding the nation’s tangled racial legacy, how can they gain empathy and insight on how the nation’s wars have affected society, and even understand current geopolitical issues facing us today.

One idea lies with the monuments our nation has erected to the men and women who have died in the wars of the last century. This can easily be done by teachers in places such as Indianapolis, Ind., which is home to the more war monuments than any other part of the nation.

A teacher at North Central High School in the city’s Washington Township district can take her class down to the Vietnam and Korean War memorials where the letters of soldiers killed in action are etched on the walls for contemplation. There, they can read the letter of Frederick Ben King, a native of Hammond, Ind., who was killed by sniper fire in 1968. Through a Google search, they will learn that King had a mother named Rosell and a father named Floyd. They will also find a Chicago Tribune article that will mention that he was 17 years old (and attending Oliver P. Morton High School) when he chose to enlist in the army. That article will also tell them that he had told his mother that he planned to be home by Christmas — and that he was killed one month before he could see them.

In researching Frederick Ben King’s story, the students will learn in a personal way how devastating Vietnam was on the lives of young men and women, both those who never made it home and the ones who came back scarred physically and emotionally. Through that, they will also understand how that devastation led to the end of the involuntary draft, which had been previously used to staff our armed services during times of war, as well as the passage of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 in reflection of the reality that those who can serve the nation should also be able to pick its political leaders.

Students can then go the letter of another Indiana native, John E. Welches, who was killed in action during the Korean War in 1951. Through Census data as well as state death records, they can learn that he was the only son of a machinist named August, who never left the Hoosier State and outlived his son by 29 years. By looking at online archives on the Korean Conflict, they will also learn that John spent his last days in the Haean-myon Valley, the infamous Punchbowl, which was located just miles from the now-demilitarized zone that separates South Korea from North Korea.

Through that research, students can then learn more about the origins of the Korean War, how the United States entered into the conflict, and understand why the sparring between the Trump Administration and the government of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, is so perilous for Asia and the rest of the world.

This isn’t to say all monuments are useful in instruction. The Confederate war memorials littering the nation, for example, have little use outside of showing how people use public spaces to reshape understanding of the origins of wars and debates over civil rights. Other memorials, including many devoted to the Second World War, leave out the roles of Americans of Japanese descent who were forced into concentration camps by the federal government after Pearl Harbor, as well as the American Indians who fought ably for the nation despite the federal government’s genocidal acts towards them and their tribes.

Yet there are plenty of monuments, including the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, and the monument dedicated to Japanese-American war heroes of World War II, that offer plenty for students to contemplate and reflect upon. Which makes them useful in helping those kids gain greater understanding about their nation and its long struggle to bend the arc of history towards progress for all.

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