{"id":352192,"date":"2018-03-15T01:11:03","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T00:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/betsy-devos-has-visited-one-underperforming-school-a-dc-charter\/"},"modified":"2018-03-15T01:11:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T00:11:03","slug":"betsy-devos-has-visited-one-underperforming-school-a-dc-charter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/betsy-devos-has-visited-one-underperforming-school-a-dc-charter\/","title":{"rendered":"Betsy DeVos Has Visited One \u2018Underperforming\u2019 School \u2013 A DC Charter"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

In the much-written-about<\/a> 60 Minutes interview<\/a> of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos by CBS reporter Lesley Stahl there was a telling exchange when Stahl queried DeVos on whether she had visited any \u201cbad schools.\u201d DeVos replied, \u201cI have not intentionally visited schools that are underperforming.\u201d But DeVos has visited an underperforming school\u2014only she called<\/a> it a \u201ca shining example.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school, which will be closed<\/a> at the end of the school year due to poor academic performance, was the Excel Academy Public Charter School, an all-girls charter in Washington, D.C. First Lady Melania Trump and Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan accompanied DeVos on the visit in 2016. Trump called the charter school \u201can exceptional example<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school was in trouble<\/a> with the District\u2019s charter school oversight board when DeVos and company visited. Less than nine months later, the board voted unanimously<\/a> to close the school, with the board chair saying, \u201cThe trend for student performance over the past several years has been negative, despite any benefits that may have occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n

D.C. is chock full of charter schools, and DeVos, a big advocate for charters, could have cherry picked a better performing one. Obviously, she didn\u2019t know about the school\u2019s academic performance then, and doesn\u2019t know about it now. I would also contend she doesn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

Excel Academy impressed DeVos not because of what it does but because of what it is (or was). When DeVos says \u201coptions,\u201d what she really means is \u201calternatives\u201d to public schools which she has ridiculed<\/a> as a \u201cdead end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many critics of DeVos understand her animosity toward public education, and accordingly challenge her grasp of facts, question her leadership abilities, lampoon her gaffes, and take issue with her education agenda.<\/p>\n

The problem is, DeVos does not have an education agenda. She has a political agenda.<\/p>\n

DeVos praised Florida in the 60 Minutes interview, saying the state has \u201ca lot of choice\u201d and \u201ctraditional public schools \u2026 get better, as well.\u201d But while it\u2019s true Florida has lots of charter schools and numerous voucher programs that let parents get taxpayer money to send their children to private schools, public schools have not gotten significantly better because of this competition.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s performance<\/a> on the National Assessment of Education Progress\u2014a longtime respected periodic assessment of schools\u2014is mixed. On the most recent NAEP, Florida fourth graders were somewhat above national average in reading and math, and 8th graders were about average in reading and somewhat below average in math. States with lots of charter schools and voucher programs, like Louisiana and Nevada, score at the bottom on NAEP, while top performers, such as Massachusetts and Vermont, are much more restrictive of education options other than public schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cA 2009 study from the Rand Corp.<\/a> found little evidence that the presence of charter schools affects the achievement scores of students in nearby traditional public schools either positively or negatively,\u201d writes<\/a> Philip Bump for The Washington Post. \u201cA number of studies since have found similarly murky<\/a> results.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the reality is Betsy DeVos doesn\u2019t much care about what any studies \u201cshow\u201d about the results of charters and vouchers.<\/p>\n

For her, and other school choice advocates, what they call \u201cparent choice\u201d matters more than any measures of performance. (There\u2019s the current inconvenience of having to justify funding of the school choice enterprise with taxpayer money. But they\u2019ll figure out a way around that.)<\/p>\n

When DeVos said to Stahl, \u201cIt all comes down to individual kids,\u201d what she really means is that there is no place in her worldview for the communal enterprise we know as public education. The sooner her critics get this, the better able they\u2019ll be to convey the real danger she represents to the nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via Common Dreams<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the much-written-about 60 Minutes interview of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos by CBS reporter Lesley Stahl there was a telling exchange when Stahl queried DeVos on whether she had visited any \u201cbad schools.\u201d DeVos replied, \u201cI have not intentionally visited schools that are underperforming.\u201d But DeVos has visited an underperforming school\u2014only she called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":352193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-352192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}