{"id":375482,"date":"2018-08-30T15:16:40","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T14:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/us-education-secretary-floats-plan-to-use-federal-funds-to-arm-teachers\/"},"modified":"2018-08-30T15:16:40","modified_gmt":"2018-08-30T14:16:40","slug":"us-education-secretary-floats-plan-to-use-federal-funds-to-arm-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/us-education-secretary-floats-plan-to-use-federal-funds-to-arm-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"US education secretary floats plan to use federal funds to arm teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>US education secretary floats plan to use federal funds to arm teachers<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Khara Sikhan<br \/>\n    <br \/>30 August 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>US Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is reportedly considering the diversion of federal school money normally used to provide mental health resources for students and expand learning options and classroom technology to purchase guns instead. In the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting last February, which killed 17, the Trump administration is calling for \u201chardening\u201d schools and arming teachers to the horror of educators and students around the country.<\/p>\n<p>DeVos created a federal school safety commission and held \u201clistening sessions\u201d in Kentucky and Washington, DC, which featured speakers calling for privatizing education with school vouchers and increasing police known euphemistically as \u201cschool resource officers.\u201d Many participants, however, called for additional counselors and mental health specialists. Even at these carefully vetted events virtually no one endorsed the Trump demand to arm teachers.<\/p>\n<p>The commission is expected to include a section in its report on the best practices for arming school personnel. In rural Lee County, Virginia, the school board has already voted to use grant money for arming teachers. \u201cIt\u2019s a cheap way to add security to our schools and the best option we could do,\u201d school board Chairman Mike Kidwell said. \u201cAny state or federal funds, in my opinion, that could go toward arming someone like this is money well spent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both Oklahoma and Texas have now asked for clarification on the legality of using federal funds through the Student Support and Academic Grants section of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to purchase firearms. The federal fund contains $1.1 billion specified for ensuring \u201csafe&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/08\/30\/educ-a30.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 US education secretary floats plan to use federal funds to arm teachers By Khara Sikhan 30 August 2018 US Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is reportedly considering the diversion of federal school money normally used to provide mental health resources for students and expand learning options and classroom technology to purchase guns instead. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-375482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}