Here's an Open Letter by Diane Ravitch to Lamar Alexander that's worth reading. Among other things, she provides information on Michigan where multi-millionaire, school choice advocate Betsy DeVos is from that reveal the ruins left by the charterization and privatization agenda.
I hope Lamar Alexander pays attention to this.In 2003, Michigan ranked 27th in fourth- grade math; by 2015, it had declined to 42nd among the states.Michigan has hundreds of charter schools. About 80% of them are run by for-profit operators. The Detroit Free Press conducted a one-year review of the charter sector and concluded it was a $1 billion a year industry that operated without accountability or transparency and that did not produce better results than public schools. Last year, when the legislature tried to develop accountability standards for the charter industry, Ms. DeVos successfully lobbied to block the legislation.
Angela Valenzuela
c/s
An Open Letter to Senator Lamar Alexander Regarding Betsy DeVos
From 1991 to 1993, I worked for
Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in the administration of
President George H.W. Bush. I was Assistant Secretary in charge of the
Office of Education Research and Improvement and also Counselor to the
Secretary of Education. Lamar Alexander is now Senator from Tennessee
and Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee (HELP), which is evaluating the qualifications of Betsy DeVos
to be U.S. Secretary of Education.*
An Open Letter to Senator Lamar Alexander
Dear Lamar,
I hope you don’t mind my taking the liberty of writing you a public letter.
I
was just reading your book of sayings, the “Little Plaid Book.” For
those who don’t know, this is your book of “311 rules, lessons, and
reminders about running for office and making a difference whether it’s
for president of the United States or president of your senior class.”
The
main lesson of the book for me is that you should be honest with
people. You shouldn’t bore them. You shouldn’t lecture them or try to
impress them. You should get to know them, listen to them, respect their
concerns, and try to understand their problems.
Rule
151 is very important at this time in our national life. It says, “When
stumped for an answer, ask yourself, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’
Then do it.”
Rule
168 says, “Read whatever Diane Ravitch writes about education.” It
doesn’t say that anyone should agree with what I write, it just says you
should read it.
So I am writing you this letter in hopes that you will read it and that I can persuade you to do the right thing.
When
I worked for you in the early 1990s in the Department of Education, I
absorbed important lessons about character and ethics in public life.
You were a model of dignity, integrity, and respect for others. You
never raised your voice. You smiled and laughed often. You were always
well informed. You picked the best person for whatever job was open.
Now
you are in the position of selecting a new Secretary of Education. I
watched the hearings, and it was evident to all but the most extreme
partisans that Ms. DeVos is uninformed, unqualified, unprepared, and
unfit for the responsibility of running this important agency.
When
asked direct questions about important federal issues, she was
noncommittal or evasive or displayed her ignorance. She thinks
compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Act–which protects
children with disabilities– should be left up to the states; she does
not know it is a federal law and is not optional. When asked about
higher education, she was stumped. She was unfamiliar with the basic
terminology of education issues.
Her
lack of experience leaves her ill-equipped to address the needs of the
vast majority of America’s schools. I understand that she doesn’t like
public schools and much prefers religious schools and privately managed
charter schools, including those that operate for-profit.
Frankly,
it is unprecedented for a Secretary of Education to disapprove of
public schools. At least eighty-five percent of American school children
attend public schools. She has no ideas about how to improve public
schools. Her only idea is that students should leave them and enroll in
nonpublic schools.
She
would be the first Secretary of Education in our history to be hostile
to public education. I have written extensively about the history of
public education and how important it is to our democracy. It seems
strange to return to the early 19th century, when children
attended religious schools, charity schools, charter schools, were
home-schooled, or had no education at all. This is not “reform.” This is
backsliding. This is wiping out nearly two centuries of hard-won
progress towards public schools that enroll boys and girls, children of
all races and cultures, children with disabilities, and children who are
learning English. We have been struggling to attain equality of
educational opportunity; we are still far from it. School choice
promotes segregation and would take us further away from our national
goal.
Since
Michigan embraced the DeVos family’s ideas about choice, Michigan has
steadily declined on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
In 2003, Michigan ranked 28th among the states in fourth-grade reading; the latest results, in 2015, showed that Michigan had dropped to 41st.
In 2003, Michigan ranked 27th in fourth- grade math; by 2015, it had declined to 42nd among the states.
Michigan
has hundreds of charter schools. About 80% of them are run by
for-profit operators. The Detroit Free Press conducted a one-year review
of the charter sector and concluded it was a $1 billion a year industry
that operated without accountability or transparency and that did not
produce better results than public schools. Last year, when the
legislature tried to develop accountability standards for the charter
industry, Ms. DeVos successfully lobbied to block the legislation.
Detroit
is awash in charters and few of them perform as well as the public
schools. Detroit is the lowest rated urban district in the nation on the
NAEP. The proliferation of choice and charters has not improved
education in that city.
As
I am sure you are aware, Tenneesee’s “Achievement School District” has
been an abject failure. The state’s lowest performing schools were taken
over and given to charter operators. The leaders of the ASD claimed
that these low performing schools would go from the bottom 5% in the
state to the top 20% in five years. That was five years ago. Not one of
the promises was kept. The schools are still among the lowest performing
in Tennessee. There are actually research-based approaches that would
have helped the children and the schools, like reducing class size and
providing medical services. Charters are not a research-based reform.
As
for vouchers, there have been many state referenda over the past 20
years, and the voters have rejected them every time, by large margins.
When Ms. DeVos and her husband Richard led a movement to change the
Michigan state constitution to permit vouchers for religious schools in
the year 2000, the referendum was defeated by 69-31%. Even in deep red
Utah, the public rejected vouchers overwhelmingly in 2007. Florida was
the last state to reject vouchers, in a 2012 vote deceptively named the
Religious Freedom Act; voters rejected it by 58-42%.
Time
and again, the American public has said that they don’t want public
money to be spent to pay tuition for religious schools. That is the
responsibility of the family, not the state.
There
is ample evidence about vouchers, which have been imposed by
legislatures, not by popular vote. Milwaukee, Cleveland, and the
District of Columbia offer vouchers, and these districts are among the
lowest performing in the nation on national tests. Milwaukee and
Cleveland have had vouchers for more than 20 years, and neither district
has seen any improvement in its public schools, nor do the voucher
schools outperform the public schools. When the taxpayers’ precious
dollars are divided among two or three sectors, none of them flourishes.
I
feel sure that you do not want your legacy to be that you aided in
destroying the historic institution of universal public education in the
United States. Every dollar that goes to a charter school or to
vouchers is taken away from the budget of the community’s public
schools. In a regime of free-market choice, public schools, which
educate the great majority of students, will have larger classes and
fewer programs, services, and electives, all in the name of a failed
concept called “choice.” I need not remind you that the origin of
school choice was the sustained effort by racist governors and
legislatures to preserve racial segregation in the South; the term was
tainted by its origins for many years, but the effect remains the same:
School choice will exacerbate racial, religious, and socioeconomic
segregation without improving education.
The
Every Student Succeeds Act, which you worked so hard to produce in a
bipartisan spirit, goes a long way towards devolving control of
education to states. I, of course, would have liked to see the
elimination of the federal mandate for annual testing, which has proven
to be ineffective for 15 years.
But
the best way to enable ESSA to work is to appoint a Secretary of
Education who comes to the job with knowledge, experience, a strong
devotion to civil rights and equality of educational opportunity, and a
commitment to let districts and states nurture better ideas than those
mandated by Washington.
With kind regards and great respect,
Diane Ravitch
*I posted this column yesterday at the Huffington Post in a slightly abridged form (I
edit and revise constantly). Much to my surprise, the comments were
remarkably positive. People are truly aware that Ms. DeVos is ill-suited
for this job.
An Open Letter to Senator Lamar Alexander Regarding Betsy DeVos | Diane Ravitch's blog
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